They wear white lab coats and study DNA fingerprinting, the process that many believe will dramatically enhance criminal investigation and the reliability of convictions for a wide variety of crimes. Unfortunately, successes such as the Colorado case are severely limited by the scarcity of DNA fingerprints on file. Unless the web of DNA data is significantly widened, America will fail to exploit the full potential of this powerful new crime-fighting technology. DNA, the chemical that embodies a person's genetic programming, can be found almost everywhere. Burglars leave blood samples when breaking and entering.
Assailants shed hair and skin cells in fights.
Terrorists and kidnappers inadvertently convict themselves by licking the envelope of a ransom note. Criminals of every ilk deposit saliva on glasses, telephones, and cigarette butts and leave spittle and sweat stains. Under a new profiling system know as Short Tandem Repeats, DNA is measured only at 13 specific sites, where chemicals are repeated in a kind of stutter. The count of these repeats creates a unique DNA fingerprint. Except for in identical twins, these 13 numbers are highly variable from one person to another, pinpointing an individual with a probability of one in several billion.