The Pros And Cons Of DNA Profiling

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Entry 1: Citation: Goodwin, William. "DNA Profiling: The First 30 Years." Science & Justice. Elsevier B. V., 01 Dec. 2015. Web. 07 Mar. 2017. Summary: In 1984, Alec Jeffreys developed an autorad (x-ray film) with DNA from a married couple and their child. By looking at the autorad, he confirmed that regions of DNA are inherited for a child from his or her parents. He realized that DNA could be used for individual identification and relationship testing. It only took one year for the idea of DNA profiling going to practice with an immigration case. In 1986, DNA profiling provided evidence for a case regarding two murders. In that case, a suspect had confessed to the murders, however, through DNA profiling the police realized that someone else …show more content…

The early use of fingerprints was to mark business transactions in ancient Babylonia. In today’s society, it is used as scientific evidence in courts throughout the world. After many years of research and study, fingerprints are known to be patterns of ridge details that transfer onto objects through contact with bare hands. Fingerprints are unique to each individual and are used to identify people based on fingerprints. Many databases have been created such as the Automated Fingerprint Identification system that holds a vast series of fingerprints that can be used to compare with fingerprints found at a crime scene. People who are arrested are required to allow the police to take their fingerprints to put in a database to keep a record. Fingerprinting is used to identify people who are deceased and it is possible that the only way to identify the body is by fingerprinting or DNA profiling. The courts and the media challenged the validity of fingerprinting, however, the low error rate for fingerprinting has helped to give evidential strength to it. Fingerprints have proved over time to be the most rapid, reliable, and cost-effective means to identify …show more content…

Evidence collected at a crime scene has to be handled with utmost care to preserve as much of the evidence as possible to take into the lab to analyze. There are many types of evidence such as transient, conditional, transfer and much more and the analysis of these types of evidence allows investigators to get information from a crime scene that they can use to help figure out who committed the crime. Sometimes evidence found at a crime scene does not point at a suspect; it only gives information on what trivial things. If forensic evidence is not introduced during a court preceding or wrongfully presented, it can lose validity in the eyes of the judicial system. Forensic investigation includes police officers, detectives, crime scene investigators and evidence technicians that have a certain task to perform. Then, evidence is presented to a judge where who determines the admissibility of the evidence. Crime scene investigation focuses on forensic science, which is used to analyze

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