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DNA SWABBING UPON ARREST: Race, DNA and the Law | | HOW DNA IS DIFFERENT
… except that compiling a DNA database is inherently different than what occurs today. While racial profiling leads to more arrests of Black and Latino men, adding a DNA database to this injustice adds another, distinct layer of concerns. First, DNA is not like fingerprinting or asking for identification. DNA provides more information than someone’s identity, including propensities for disease and psychological issues. (See this story on one of the many ways one DNA sample may be used for more than what an individual agreed that it be used for. Pay particular attention to the scientist’s belief that this was not only OK but good science). It is not looking too far into the crystal ball to see that after amassing a collection of DNA samples, that it might be argued that this information be used for scientific research. | |
< < | Second, using statistical techniques, the DNA of one family member may be used to determine to the DNA of others in the family. In other words, if a relative of yours is arrested and swabbed, using statistical techniques that will, likely, only become more precise, your DNA may be linked to their record. For Black and Latino families their exposure to this risk grows exponentially with each of their relatives being stopped and arrested. For Latinos in Arizona dealing with a new immigration law allowing official to stop anyone for no more reason than appearing to be an immigrant the potential accumulation of genetic information is staggering. Further, the accuracy of these results increases with the number of family members arrested again disproportionately affecting Black and Latino families.
Finally, this effort would create perverse incentives. For every arrest, police will get more of this valuable information, which will incentivize arrests. Blacks and Latinos are likely to be the victims of these incentives. | > > | Second, using statistical techniques, the DNA of one family member may be used to determine to the DNA of others in the family. In other words, if a relative of yours is arrested and swabbed, using statistical techniques that will, likely, only become more precise, your DNA may be linked to their record. For Black and Latino families their exposure to this risk grows exponentially with each of their relatives being stopped and arrested.
For everybody else, too, so far as I can see.
For Latinos in Arizona dealing with a new immigration law allowing official to stop anyone for no more reason than appearing to be an immigrant the potential accumulation of genetic information is staggering. Further, the accuracy of these results increases with the number of family members arrested again disproportionately affecting Black and Latino families.
Why does this
disproportionately affect Black and Latino families? I think I'm
missing one step in the logic here.
Finally, this effort would create perverse incentives. For every arrest, police will get more of this valuable information, which will incentivize arrests.
Do we currently
experience people's being frequently arrested solely so their
fingerprints can be taken? I don't think so, and it seems to me
implausible that it will happen over DNA either. I think some basis
for the conclusion here would be helpful.
Blacks and Latinos are likely to be the victims of these incentives. | | THE UK: A GLIMPSE INTO OUR FUTURE | | *CONCLUSION*![Example](/twiki/pub/CompPrivConst/BetreGizawFirstPaper/Example.jpg) | |
< < | I have argued that while there are troubling aspects of DNA sampling for the fundamental character of a democratic society, the effects of this type of program on Black and Latinos will be much greater than on any other group. More importantly, because of the very nature of DNA, the impact will be different, in kind, rather than in degree, of the impact racial profiling currently occurring because it will lead to government access to a large amount of information unrelated to identification. Further, family members with no contact with police may have their identities comprised as a result of the identification of family members as a result of DNA similarities. Finally, this practice will create perverse interests that will likely affect Black and Latinos in greater proportion. | > > | I have argued that while there are troubling aspects of DNA sampling for the fundamental character of a democratic society, the effects of this type of program on Black and Latinos will be much greater than on any other group. More importantly, because of the very nature of DNA, the impact will be different, in kind, rather than in degree, of the impact racial profiling currently occurring because it will lead to government access to a large amount of information unrelated to identification.
You repeat that
statement in this essay, and in fact it forms a crucial part of your
argument, because it's why somehow DNA identification is "worse" than
fingerprinting, but I'm not sure I understand it and I think it's
based on a technical misunderstanding about what's in these "DNA
databases." They don't contain representations of an individual's
entire intact genome, that can be read as a book would be read. The
information that is used to make these DNA-based IDs is much cruder.
Imagine that you took a diamond and hit it with a hammer, then
compared the fragments to the fragments you got when you smashed
another diamond, to make a statistical judgment about how close to
identical the two diamonds were, based on what was left after you
smashed them. That's what's in the databases: a few summary numbers
about some sequences that showed up often when you put some cellular
DNA through the blender (it's not even nuclear DNA, given how much
less of that there is, so you don't even have all the genetic
material related to the individual, and much of what you do have is
mitochondrial DNA, which is another genome altogether, and so forth).
This sort of summary information might give you a good guess about
whether two samples are from the same person (although there are also
substantial uncertainties involved), but it doesn't tell you anywhere
near as much about the person or persons as you seem to
assume.
Now, at least in theory, for every entry in such an ID database
there's a cotton swab somewhere, which might be stored in a way that
isn't prejudicial to the long-term preservation of the actual
material. It might at some time in the future be possible to take
such a swab and get just a simple of the nuclear DNA, and actually
amplify that so you could sequence it whole, and actually know what
the whole genome of the human being was from which the sample came.
But why would any police agency do that with all its samples, at
greater or lesser expense, when it wouldn't do them any particular
good? Today, under existing conditions, that's not technically
feasible and if it were no one could afford it. They could do some
specific genetic tests on each sample, but why would they, when each
such interaction prejudices the sample's ultimate value as evidence?
So I don't know what the technical facts are on which you rely, or
how that reliance affects your argument.
Further, family members with no contact with police may have their identities comprised as a result of the identification of family members as a result of DNA similarities. Finally, this practice will create perverse interests that will likely affect Black and Latinos in greater proportion. | |
-- BetreGizaw - 03 May 2010 |
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