DNA Profiling

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From cases such as OJ Simpson to Chandra Levy, DNA profiling also called DNA fingerprinting or DNA typing has played a major role in the criminal justice system. The law enforcement community uses DNA profiling to rule out or identify suspects. Unlike hair microscopy, bite mark comparisons, shoe print comparisons, and firearm tool mark analysis, DNA typing has been developed through massive scientific research and has undergone meticulous scientific evaluation (Innocence Project). DNA is a foolproof method of identifying a perpetrator of a crime.

Like fingerprints, DNA is unique, with the exception of identical twins; no two people have the same DNA. DNA profiling is a technique that can identify the person responsible of a violent crime from the physical traces left at the scene. DNA can also exonerate those who were wrongly convicted. Judges and prosecutors proclaim that DNA analysis is the “greatest advance in crime fighting technology (Aronson, 1).

DNA is the abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is the genetic material found in cells of all living organisms. Human beings contain approximately one trillion cells (Aronson 9). DNA is a long strand in the shape of a double helix made up of small building blocks (Riley). There are four types of building blocks called bases connected with DNA: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. Each of the bases is represented by the letters A, G, C, and T. The bases are aligned in a specific order, adenine pairs with thymine and guanine pairs with cytosine; this determines a person’s genetic trait (DNA Initiative).

Sections of DNA contain sequences of bases that repeat several times (Saferstein 44). Genes contain the code for making proteins and arrange them int...

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...ocence Project:Exonerating the Wrongfully Convicted and Helping Strengthen the Criminal Justice System. Sheriff, 60(1), 37-39.

The Innocence Project. (n.d.). Retrieved June 25, 2011, from http://www.innocenceproject.org

Jones, P. (n.d.). DNA Forensics: From RFLP to PCR-STR and Beyond. Forensic Magazine, 1-3. Retrieved from http://www.forensicmag.com/article/dna-forensics-rflp-pcr-str-and-beyond?page=0,0

National Research Council. (1996). Introduction. In The Evaluation of Forensic DNA Evidence.

Riley, D. E. (2005, April 6). DNA Testing: An Introduction for Non-scientists. Scientific Testimony. Retrieved from http://www.scientific.org/tutorials/articles/riley/riley.html

Saferstein, R. (2007). DNA the Indispensable Forensic Science Tool. In Criminalistics (9th ed., pp. 382-416). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. (Original work published 1977)

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