Each state already requires prisoners convicted of offenses ranging from murder to intimidating a witness to submit DNA specimens. By the time all 50 states join the national system in 2002, the FBI predicts NDIS will contain more than 600,000 genetic profiles and will be growing at the pace of 100,000 new profiles per year. The enlargement of NDIS has attracted criticism from civil rights groups, who question the constitutionality of taking DNA from a convict without a search warrant. And privacy advocates fear that geneticists might use the cache of convicts' blood to search for a genetic basis for criminal behavior. Few existing state or federal laws set clear rules for the fate of the DNA samples, which many states save indefinitely.
Vague regulations leave the system open to abuse.
Despite these concerns, lawsuits filed to stop DNA databases have not fared well. Rebecca Pollard is a Boston-area freelance journalist. She teaches nonfiction writing at Boston University. This article has an online forum . Join us for a discussion.