DNA and Criminal Forensics Essay

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DNA has improved the Forensics Field

As technology and science have progressed, DNA evidence and its use within criminal forensics and trials have become more prevalent. This is not to say that every case hinges on DNA evidence, or that every crime scene can be worked over in order to obtain a criminal's DNA, but the knowledge of this tool within the forensics realm has reshaped the way in which many investigations are conducted. DNA evidence has also acted to shed a new light within the trial realm, as experts in the field offer their opinions as to the efficacy and accuracy of such evidence. It is also being used to shed new light on old cases, helping people get out of jail and clear their names in many cases.

DNA was first used by authorities to help convict a murderer in England in 1984. In the U.S., it was first used in the late 1980's in a Portland, Oregon investigation (Lynch, et. al., 2008). Since these times, DNA evidence and the science and accuracy behind it has evolved into a process that now take a few days instead of weeks or months. Twenty years ago it was not uncommon for forensics labs to require three to five weeks to process DNA evidence, and the types and condition of the evidence often had to be very specific, or it could not be analyzed (Weir, 2009).

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Currently, there exists new technology to help recover damaged or incomplete DNA evidence from a crime scene.

If a person leaves his or her DNA at a crime scene, which could occur a number of ways through blood, hair, fingernails, semen, and other bodily fluids, that evidence is now subject to forensics testing (Weir, 2009). As the U.S. builds a DNA database of all its convicted criminals and felons, it is becoming rather difficult to remain out of police or forensic scrutiny if the person who commits the crime is in that database (Weir, 2009). The database itself is not unlike the fingerprint database, which began nearly a century ago in that it helps authorities track who was at or around a crime scene and at what time or in what capacity. Beyond the database, crime labs are now even able to analyze DNA evidence and samples from a criminal or suspect's family in order to obtain a clear match between them and the evidence. This means that a criminal or suspect who is not in the database could then have such evidence used against them in court (Bieber, Brenner, and Lazer, 2006).

Even further beyond the database, technologically, lies the newly developed and highly controversial use of DNA evidence to predict externally visible….....

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