New York governor Eliot Spitzer wants to broaden the state's DNA database to include DNA taken from people found guilty of any misdemeanor. The NYT has more on the idea here.
Let's take a look at NY penal law to see who might get cheek swabbed from NY State under the proposed new rules:
--a person who "makes unreasonable noise or disturbance while at a lawfully assembled religious service or within one hundred feet thereof."
--a person who "engages in sexual intercourse with another person at a time when he has a living spouse, or the other person has a living spouse."
--a person who "knowingly permits a child less than eighteen years old to enter or remain in or upon a place, premises or establishment where...activity...involving marihuana...is maintained or conducted."
--a person who "gives or sells or causes to be given or sold any alcoholic beverage...to a person less than twenty-one years old."
--a person who "marks the body of a child less than eighteen years old with indelible ink or pigments by means of tattooing."
--a person who "possesses any firearm, electronic dart gun, electronic stun gun, gravity knife, switchblade knife, pilum ballistic knife, metal knuckle knife, cane sword, billy, blackjack, bludgeon, metal knuckles, chuka stick, sand bag, sandclub, wrist-brace type slingshot or slungshot, shirken or 'Kung Fu star'."
--a person who "shall offer or expose for sale, sell or furnish, any fireworks or dangerous fireworks."
--a person who discards "in any place where it might attract children, a container which has a compartment of more than one and one-half cubic feet capacity and a door or lid which locks or fastens automatically when closed and which cannot easily be opened from the inside, he fails to remove the door, lid, locking or fastening device."
New York State has historically collected DNA samples from people convicted of serious crimes. The samples get plugged into a "DNA
Identification Index," which, despite what the NYT reports, has been around since 1996. In 1999, the state legislature expanded the database to include DNA profiles from people convicted of violent felonies. The database was expanded again in 2004 to house info on people convicted of hate crimes, terrorism and sex offenses.
The latest expansion would add 50,000 more samples to the existing
250,000, according to the NYT. That seems like a smallish number, considering last year there were 109,661 felony convictions in New York
State compared to 210,781 misdemeanor convictions.
Throughout the country, the collection of DNA evidence into data warehouses has increased dramatically in recent years. Creating an effective system for states to share DNA was one of the first efforts advanced by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. Federal legislation passed in 2004 helped further that goal. All 50 states participate in the FBI's CODIS database, which contains 4,510,617 DNA profiles as of March 2007. For more details on state DNA collection efforts check out this map.
