Genetic Engineering: DNA Testing and Social Control

DNA Testing and Social Control

Pragmatism is the name of the game when it comes to taking away freedom. The public tends to be against any attempt to curtail civil liberties across the board. It is standard practice, however, to for the government to violate the rights of certain groups in the name of public safety or to fight crime. This is what is happening with the government collection of DNA samples.

The state of New York announced on August 5 that it intends to collect DNA samples from every person in prison, on parole, or in probation in that state for one of a specified list of crimes. Included on this list are murder, sex crimes, drug dealing, and some drug offenses. The samples will be digitized and placed on state computers. Once this database has been establish, police will be able to search it in order to find a match with evidence found at crime scene.

New York is not alone in doing this. All 50 states maintain a DNA database of some type. Mostly though it is only individuals convicted of sex crimes that have their records stored. Eight states sample DNA at a level comparable to the New York proposal. In Louisiana the police actually take and keep DNA samples from any person that they arrest.

Proponents of expanding the use of DNA tests in the legal arena like to point out that these tests will exonerate truly innocent individuals. DNA tests have exonerated some wrongly imprisoned people but it is disingenuous to think this is the real reason for growing use of DNA tests. The real reason for all of this is, of course, to help prosecutors obtain more convictions. It is thus worth keeping in mind that the criminal justice system currently reflects deep class and race biases. Journalist and attorney David Cole argues persuasively in his recently published book No Equal Justice that this is no accident. Rather law enforcement, the legal system, and the prison system operate in a way that insures the disproportionate imprisonment of poor people and people of color. If the government only conducts DNA tests of people convicted of crimes, it will fortify and expand this already unfair process.

Of course one possible way to blunt these biases is to take DNA samples from absolutely everybody. This might seem Orwellian but there is a certain logic to it.