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DNA as an investigative tool
Dna in criminal investigations research paper
Human DNA helps to solve crimes in society
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Have you ever wondered how police officers can classify someone just by taking a simple blood test? Well DNA profiling is a method of identifying an individual by unique characteristics of their DNA. A specific DNA pattern is called a profile. It is obtained from an individual by a sample of tissue, blood, fingerprints etc. DNA testing has many uses, both positive and negative, in our society. It also has many uses, in prevention of economic fraud, dietetic work, and classifying species, identifying bodies, screening for disease, and investigating paternity. Most importantly DNA profiling is used in forensic science to find who committed the crime.
Classifying species is also an important use of DNA profiling. The growing databases of animal genes have given wildlife researchers and environmentalists a powerful new tool to find new species and protect endangered animals. Scientists know the genetic profiles of some species so well they can tell the region or population they come from by examining the DNA of an individual animal.
DNA profiling is being used comprehensively for paternity testing because of its capacity to determine to a high degree of certainty about the claims to be a child's parents or grandparents. This will enable the investigating agencies to either include or exclude possible source of DNA found in relation to a criminal investigation. It is also true that DNA profiling can only be used if there is enough DNA in the samples. Crime samples can be compared to a sample from a known suspect or compared to a database of DNA profiling results from other scenes or from convicted offenders. If there is a "match", the two samples may have originated from the same person. While making comparison, the profiles generated...
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...make the scientist mad then he could threaten to release this information.
One of the main problems with the process of DNA fingerprinting is that the sample can be easily ruined. The tiniest pieces of genetic junk can contaminate DNA samples, causing them to be useless. This is a huge negative because if the scientist was to accidentally drop a single piece of junk the entire test would be ruined, and another test would have to be performed.
In conclusion, DNA profiling is something that police could use to help identify criminals, but the average person should not have to get a profile. There are pros and cons of DNA profiling, but in my opinion DNA profiling should be avoided, but it should be used for criminals, or people who have been involved in donating sperm etc. If the file of the donor was to be lost than DNA profiling could be used to find out who it was.
DNA evidence should not be collected from suspects as a matter of routine unless the information is relevant to a specific crime in question. For example, it would appropriate to obtain a DNA sample from a suspect where DNA evidence is left at the scene of a crime and the suspect's DNA in needed to prove the suspect's involvement.
DNA is the blueprint of life. It stores our genetic information which is what is in charge of how our physical appearance will look like. 99.9% of human DNA is the same in every person yet the remaining .1% is what distinguishes each person (Noble Prize). This small percentage is enough to make each person different and it makes identifying people a lot easier when its necessary. DNA not only serves to test relationships between people it also helps in criminal cases. DNA testing in criminal cases has not been around for many years if fact it was not until the early 1990s when the use of DNA testing for criminal cases was approved and made available. By comparing the DNA of a suspect and that found in the crime scene a person can either be convicted of a crime or they can be exonerated. This method of testing gained more publicity in the 1984 case of Kirk Noble Bloodsworth a man who had been convicted of the rape and first degree murder of a nine year old girl in Maryland. His case was a milestone in the criminal justice system since it involved the use of new technology and it also raised the question of how many people had been wrongly incarcerated for a crime they did not commit.
. DNA can be left or collected from the hair, saliva, blood, mucus, semen, urine, fecal matter, and even the bones. DNA analysis has been the most recent technique employed by the forensic science community to identify a suspect or victim since the use of fingerprinting. Moreover, since the introduction of this new technique, there has been a large number of individuals released or convicted of crimes based on DNA left at the crime scene. DNA is the abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid.
Nowadays, DNA is a crucial component of a crime scene investigation, used to both to identify perpetrators from crime scenes and to determine a suspect’s guilt or innocence (Butler, 2005). The method of constructing a distinctive “fingerprint” from an individual’s DNA was first described by Alec Jeffreys in 1985. He discovered regions of repetitions of nucleotides inherent in DNA strands that differed from person to person (now known as variable number of tandem repeats, or VNTRs), and developed a technique to adjust the length variation into a definitive identity marker (Butler, 2005). Since then, DNA fingerprinting has been refined to be an indispensible source of evidence, expanded into multiple methods befitting different types of DNA samples. One of the more controversial practices of DNA forensics is familial DNA searching, which takes partial, rather than exact, matches between crime scene DNA and DNA stored in a public database as possible leads for further examination and information about the suspect. Using familial DNA searching for investigative purposes is a reliable and advantageous method to convict criminals.
Pretend you are adopted for a moment. You have been searching for your biological parents and you think you’ve found them. How can you know without a doubt that they are your birth parents? With the advances in DNA technology, scientists use gene frequencies and statistical analyses to ascertain the biological relationships of individuals. Harmening (2005) states, the most common use for parentage testing is the determination of whether a man is the biological father of a child. However, the testing can be used for non-classical situations such as siblingship and maternity testing.
Another discrepancy between actual forensics and how it is portrayed in the media is the availability of information in databases. There is only a small percentage of the entire population’s fingerprints or DNA samples stored within databases such as the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). This makes finding a match between a DNA sample or fingerprint difficult, as a match would only be found if the person’s information was already stored within the database. If there is no match previously stored in a database, the fingerprint or DNA sample could be potentially rendered useless within a trial. Typically, in order to perform an analysis, investigators must already have a suspect in mind and request a DNA or fingerprint sample from him or her. If the suspect does not want to provide one however, the sample collected as evidence may not count as valid. The CSI effect creates an idealized image that all crimes can be solved with a hair or drop of blood, but this is not always the case in real life.
Saltus, Richard. "DNA Fingerprinting: Its A Chance Of Probabilties." The Boston Globe 22 August 1994: 25.
DNA fingerprinting, or sometimes known as DNA typing, is isolating and developing images of sequences of DNA to evaluate the DNA in an individual’s cells. DNA fingerprinting today is used for many different things in many different areas of science. In forensic science, DNA typing can determine which person did which crime by using blood or skin left at a crime scene. In medical science, patients can find out who their siblings, parents, or children are by using DNA fingerprinting (webmd).
DNA in forensic science has been around for a long time. DNA has had help in solving almost every crime committed. There have been a lot of crimes where people are raped or murdered and the person who did it runs free. Scientists can collect the littlest item they see at the scene, such as a cigarette butt or coffee cup and check it for DNA. People have spent years in jail for a crime they didn’t commit till DNA testing came into effect. People are getting out of jail after 20 years for a crime they didn’t commit, cause of the DNA testing. DNA has helped medical researchers develop vaccines for disease causing microbe. DNA has become a standard tool of forensics in many murders and rapes.
DNA analysis is a scientific process among the newest and most sophisicated of techniques used to test for genetic disorders, which involves direct examination of the DNA molecule itself (Lyman, 2014) . Today crime labs use mtDNA analysis. This type of analysis allows smaller degraded pieces of DNA to still be successfully tested (Lyman, 2014) . There are several steps taken when analyzing DNA in forensics. When testing scientists must first isolate the DNA so it is not contaminated and can't be used. Lab technicians the take small pieces of the DNA, conserving as much as they can encase they need to test again. Once testing is done the next step is determining the DNA test results and finally there is the comparison and interpretation of the test results from the unknown and known samples to determ...
Once a crime has been committed the most important item to recover is any type of evidence left at the scene. If the suspect left any Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) at the crime scene, he could then be linked to the crime and eventually charged. A suspect’s DNA can be recovered if the suspect leaves a sample of his or her DNA at the crime scene. However, this method was not always used to track down a suspect. Not too long ago, detectives used to use bite marks, blood stain detection, blood grouping as the primary tool to identify a suspect. DNA can be left or collected from the hair, saliva, blood, mucus, semen, urine, fecal matter, and even the bones. DNA analysis has been the most recent technique employed by the forensic science community to identify a suspect or victim since the use of fingerprinting. Moreover, since the introduction of this new technique it has been a la...
Most studies have shown that popular opinion holds that without a doubt national DNA databases have proved useful in criminal investigations (Wallace, 2006, pS27). The concept of a national DNA database has raised concern about privacy and human rights as seen through the scope of public safety. All of these concerns are elevated with databases include convicted, arrestee, innocent, and “rehabilitated” offenders (Suter, 2010, p339). Robin Williams of University of Duham (2006) asserts that:
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is an acclaimed extraordinary discovery that has contributed great benefits in several fields throughout the world. DNA evidence is accounted for in the majority of cases presented in the criminal justice system. It is known as our very own unique genetic fingerprint; “a chromosome molecule which carries genetic coding unique to each person with the only exception of identical twins (that is why it is also called 'DNA fingerprinting ')” (Duhaime, n.d.). DNA is found in the nuclei of cells of nearly all living things.
...igators a lot about a perpetrator it can not tell them his name, where he lives or if he has a previous criminal record. While DNA profiling is not the only forensic tool available, DNA testing technology and improved databases are inspiring investigators and law enforcement agencies to re-open cases that were previously considered unsolvable.
DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) are the molecules that carry the genetic information of a living being. At a disadvantage, forensic scientist’s only options were to focus on blood factors such as A, B, and O as their only means of linking a suspect to the crime. Plasma is the fluid portion of blood and blood refers to the complex mixture of proteins, cells, enzymes, and inorganic materials. DNA testing is a method used to study collective variations. Each method is unique and has different and has their own limitations and variations and may have different technical