Deoxyribonucleic Acid, also known as DNA, is something that exists in humans and almost all other organisms. DNA was first discovered in the mid 1800’s. Almost all cells in a human’s body have the same DNA, and most DNA is found in the nucleus of cells. An important fact about DNA is that it can make copies of itself, and it’s always in a pattern. In cells, DNA is comprised into DNA complexes called Chromosomes. DNA can be used to implicated and convict criminals in crimes, if some form of DNA was left behind. In general, DNA is used to solve crimes and close cases in two different ways. When you identify a suspect, some of their DNA will be compared to any evidence found at the scene of the crime. This is done to help establish if the suspect …show more content…
government enacted plans for a database and system, that would work with local, state, and national agencies to help with DNA profiles. The system is called the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and allows profiles of those who have DNA on file to be readily available to law enforcement officials nationwide. CODIS compares evidence from crime scenes with DNA profiles of people who have been convicted in the past. The government has made it a law that anyone who is convicted of certain crimes must submit DNA to keep on file. With this policy, if used to its full potential, many unsolved crimes can be solved and maybe some crimes can be …show more content…
Worse, only partial profiles will end up catching up with more people than a full profile would. To make things more complicated, one DNA profile can be accidentally generated if samples from multiple people are combined accidentally. It’s better to think of the DNA profiles as possibly or likely to come from a suspect, but there’s a statistical approach when it comes to matches and how to narrow it down. One such approach is the likelihood ratio, which looks at the likelihood that the DNA came from the suspect and the likelihood that it could have come from someone