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DNA CASE BACKLOG

المؤلف:  Max M. Houck، Jay A. Siegel

المصدر:  Fundamentals of Forensic Science

الجزء والصفحة:  286

2026-08-04

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DNA CASE BACKLOG

The success of DNA typing and the CODIS database has resulted in nearly all states passing laws that require some or all people arrested for crimes to be DNA typed and the data stored in CODIS. Most of the time, these laws do not make provision for hiring additional DNA analysts or building more facilities to handle this large caseload. In most cases, the so-called CODIS samples greatly outnumber criminal DNA evidence and cause huge backlogs in many forensic science laboratory systems. Dr Joseph Peterson of the California State University at Los Angeles conducts a census and survey of publically funded crime laboratories every three years. The latest year for which data is complete is 2005. At that time, the nationwide backlog in DNA cases represented less than 10% of all requests that were backlogged. At the beginning of 2005, a typical laboratory had 86 backlogged requests for DNA analysis. At the end of that year, the backlog was 152 cases. The total number of backlogged cases in 2005 of all types was over 435,000. For DNA, the number was about 40,000. This data, however, does not tell the whole story. In 2005, California law mandated a widening of the types of offences for which people arrested or convicted would have to supply DNA. As a result, there were more than 235,000 database DNA samples backlogged at the end of 2005 in California alone. In some states, separate CODIS laboratories are being created; in others, CODIS samples are being sent to private laboratories at considerable expense. There is little question that the number of database and case samples will continue to increase as more laboratories bring DNA typing online and more states mandate DNA collection and processing for CODIS for additional arrests and convictions.