Why direct upload to CODIS for private DNA labs is long overdue
For over three decades, accredited private forensic DNA laboratories have played a crucial role in assisting law enforcement, public government laboratories, prosecutors, defense attorneys, medical examiners, and coroners with expeditious and specialized testing of cases. As demands for forensic DNA testing on crime scene evidence increase, so does the pressure on typically under-resourced public laboratories to meet the needs of the criminal justice system. Limited funding and staffing make it nearly impossible to sustain operations, let alone validate and implement newer technologies. Additionally, when quality issues arise or significant backlogs of violent crime cases are identified, there is often minimal bandwidth for public labs to respond without negatively impacting current caseloads or creating downstream issues, ultimately affecting public safety.
As such, the routine use of fully accredited private forensic DNA labs serves a vital role in keeping public labs operational. By handling select casework, they allow public labs to focus on core casework despite limited resources. Private labs also can adopt advanced technologies that are often too costly or burdensome for public labs to implement. Together, the complementary use of private forensic labs can help reduce backlogs, address quality issues, and improve case outcome with the use of cutting-edge technologies.
Additionally, private labs are designed to handle high volumes of cases which allows them to assist multiple jurisdictions at once. For example, to date there have been more than 300,000 cases processed by private forensic labs, comprising more than three million offender or arrestee samples and over 900 forensic investigative genetic genealogy cases. Like public labs, private forensic DNA labs are also accredited to the same standards, such as ISO/IEC 17025:2017 for Forensic Testing and Calibration Laboratories by ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB). This ensures the same quality of work is maintained from lab to lab, upholding the safety and protection of the evidence and data generated from it.
Public-private partnerships help generate more robust and probative DNA profiles in a timely manner, providing more investigative information and helping increase public safety. However, there is one major obstacle preventing true efficiency and significant cost savings- private DNA laboratories cannot directly upload eligible profiles to CODIS.
The inability of private labs to upload eligible DNA profiles directly to the combined DNA index system (CODIS) has detrimental downstream effects that are not only economically wasteful, but also negatively impact public safety. Currently, every CODIS-eligible profile that is generated by a private DNA lab must undergo an additional technical review by the submitting agencies’ state or local lab before being uploaded to CODIS.
This has several serious implications:
Justice gets delayed. It can take the state or local lab weeks to years to conduct these reviews, especially when large volumes of cases are outsourced as often happens with sexual assault kit backlogs.
Cases go untested. State or local labs may choose not to work with any private labs, which means the case cannot be outsourced and remains stagnant, or it can be outsourced but any eligible CODIS profiles obtained will not be uploaded to CODIS. The latter is a decision that falls to the submitting investigative agency to make but can have serious ramifications that impact an investigation. Law enforcement are therefore left with few to no options for advancing their investigations.
Public safety is compromised. There is an increased chance for recidivism, or the tendency of a convicted criminal to attack again, to occur during the time between when the private lab issues their DNA reports and when the state or local lab conducts a repeat technical review and upload to CODIS.
Innovation is stifled. In order to comply with the current CODIS requirements, private laboratories must utilize the same technology as the public laboratory, even if a more effective option is available in the private lab. However, most state and local laboratories do not have the funding or manpower to implement and maintain newer and more effective technologies. As a result, private labs are forced to use older methodologies on evidentiary samples. This has serious consequences collectively as the forensic DNA industry is unable to invest in new technologies which could provide more robust DNA profiles and leads on cases, improve efficiency, and lower costs.
Costs go up. There are significant costs associated with this redundant but currently mandatory technical review. A realistic estimate for the additional technical review is $500 per case. One of the most well-known federal grant programs is the National Sexual Assault Kit Intiative (SAKI), in which almost 40,000 profiles have been uploaded to CODIS to date. Approximately 90% of all SAKI cases are outsourced to private DNA labs, meaning the cost alone for this additional technical review under SAKI is approximately $18 million. That figure is staggering when you consider that the same dollar amount could have paid for the testing of approximately 13,000 sexual assault kits.
The original governing language pertaining to CODIS uploads was outlined over 30 years ago in the DNA Identification Act of 1994. Minimal amendments have been made since that time despite the immense changes in the field of forensic DNA, its increased application to violent crimes, and the critical role that private DNA labs play in processing evidence from across the country.
It is time that changes were made to allow accredited forensic DNA labs to upload directly to CODIS. In permitting the direct upload of profiles, we can ensure the efficient provision of investigative leads to submitting agencies, prevent additional acts of violence, save millions of dollars that can be better directed towards improving state and local labs, and help solve more cases.