Should court officials be permitted to take DNA samples from anyone

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kristy W
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Kristy W

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convicted of a crime? What do you think? In my law class today we debated this and many people had reasons why they should be, but little could come up with valid reasons why they shouldn't be! What's your opinion?
 
Now are you talking FELONS or criminals all together?

Here in WA, the state collects DNA on all convicted felons and the case was affirmed in the state Supreme Court. I tend to agree, because one of the things I learned in criminology was that felons tend to reoffend; having that DNA will make the jobs of law enforcement easier and it can potentially protect innocent people from being charged with a crime.
 
Yes that way we have a future record cause its a good chance they will break the law again.
 
Most, if not all people who are convicted of a crime have a tendency towards being dishonest and deceitful and it would be in their best interest to try and implicate someone else. Especially if it comes to sex crimes or stealing. I think their DNA should be provided, so after the time has passed and they are released, there are other crimes that are difficult to solve and there is DNA on the site collected by the forensic technicians, but no record of who it belongs to - a sampling of all who have been convicted of prior crimes would show if they were there or not. There are many crimes committed by repeat felons, and having their DNA on file will pinpoint it down to who those people are.
 
I believe anybody convicted of a Felony (especially murder, rape, battery or child molestation) then they should have his/her DNA put in a nationwide database. Many States do not give heavy sentences to criminals these days and they are out in the street in a few years (if they even get prison time). It would make Law Enforcements job so much easier to arrest repeat offenders.
 
Well to play devil's advocate - what about right to privacy? I think a better question is - why SHOULD a court be permitted to take a prisoner's DNA just because he was convicted? Perhaps in case he gets out and commits another crime? But what's to say that in committing that crime he will leave DNA anyway? The maintenance of such a database would also be impractical with today's technology and would prove of little use (you can currently only compare DNA samples from people you specifically pick). Thus, I see little ways taking a prisoner's DNA would prove useful.
 
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