Criminal identification procedures Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Criminal identification procedures - Essay Example Just as many other things have during the course of the last decade, the technological advancement in the pursuit of legal justice has been astonishing. Never before in history have investigators had tools at their disposal to solve a case and as such, giving the victim(s) some much needed closure for healing and getting the sense of justice which is entitled to them. With all of this advancement, each innovation in its own right played an instrumental role in crime solving. In that case, two of the specific advancements in technology to observe are DNA Analysis and the use of Intra-agency databases for DNA. DNA plays such a crucial role in legal matters with the fact that it is a genetic picture of a person. DNA is defined as, "Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. DNA is often compared to a set of blueprints, since it contains the instructions needed to construct other components of cells, such as proteins and RNA molecules. The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in regulating the use of this genetic information," ("DNA" p.1). As for how exactly forensic experts can use DNA in their investigations, the online Encyclopedia Wikipedia answers this further down in their discussion on the subject of DNA and the multiple roles in which it can play a part. "Forensic scientists can use DNA in blood, semen, skin, saliva or hair at a crime scene to identify a perpetrator. This process is called genetic fingerprinting, or more accurately, DNA profiling. In DNA profiling, the lengths of variable sections of repetitive DNA, such as short tandem repeats and minisatellites, are compared between people. This method is usually an extremely reliable technique for identifying a criminal.[104] However, identification can be complicated if the scene is contaminated with DNA from several people.[105] DNA profiling was developed in 1984 by British geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys,[106] and first used in forensic science to convict Colin Pitchfork in the 1988 Enderby murders case.[107] People convicted of certain types of crimes may be required to provide a sample of DNA for a database. This has helped investigators solve old cases where only a DNA sample was obtained from the scene. DNA profiling can also be used to identify victims of mass casualty incid ents, [108" ("DNA" p.1). An advantage for the use of DNA Analysis and by extension having Intra-agency databases for DNA is that DNA itself acts as a blueprint for the criminal who chose to commit the crime in the first place and with tools for analysis and a database to maintain the information achieved through the study of the DNA, investigators will be able to maintain a cohesive list of DNA evidence from criminal cases which may otherwise have been far more difficult to have solved had it not been for the technology in the first place. Within recent years, many people have been freed from jail after spending numerous years behind bars for crimes that, had the technology been there at the time of trial; they would not have been convicted in the first plac