Hernando County’s new rapid DNA technology sparks concerns of accuracy, possible injustice

Share
Hernando County SO Patrol Cruiser // Credit: Facebook, Florida Sheriffs Association

Listen:

Hernando County is the first of about a dozen Florida Sheriff’s offices to integrate Rapid DNA testing during the booking process. But, there are some red flags over the system’s reliability.

The new technology develops a DNA profile from a sample mouth swab in 1-2 hours without the need for a DNA laboratory and without any human interpretation.

“It is actually looking for hits as far as if that DNA matches another DNA sample that was used at a crime.”

Justin Beetz, a Lieutenant at the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, says the biggest benefit of the new technology is time saved.

“It’s cutting our wait on processing DNA from weeks to a couple hours, that’s probably the biggest benefit.”

But Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst with the ACLU says it comes with risks.

“For years, DNA analysis has been done by trained professionals, according to rigorous protocols in accredited laboratories, and still we’ve seen terrible scandals where sloppy work has led to false convictions, wrongful convictions, wrongful arrests, et cetera.”

He worries what will come when police officers, with less training, are now doing the analysis.

“There’s just going to be – a risk of injustices is going to be even higher. That the machines won’t be operated well, the contamination of samples, faulty profiles, etcetera that lead to miscarriages of justice”

Currently, FDLE’s DNA database supervisor says there are still many challenges to overcome before Rapid DNA devices can be used for crime scene sample analysis.

However, the FDLE towards crime scene use.

“Crime scene evidence is a whole different ball game, because samples can be degraded, they can be mixed with many different people’s DNA. The FBI said ‘Don’t try using these machines for that’ and yet we’re seeing that happen, so that’s another example where you can get wrongful convictions.”

Currently, all samples are still being mailed to FDLE for manual testing, even after using the Rapid DNA testing technology.

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

student meal
Next school year Hillsborough public schools are offering free meals

Hillsborough Public Schools are offering students free meals for the...

Correspondence Through Poetry. A Mind-Numbing Week.

Father Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems by Herbert Gold...

The sound of change: Music’s influence on anti-war and human rights movements

Throughout history, music has served as a powerful catalyst for...

a man in a tye dye shirt talking on a radio microphone
Recreational pot for Florida is on the ballot this fall—let’s talk about it

In four months, Florida voters have the opportunity to vote...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Follow us on Instagram

Emo Night Tampa Radio
Player position: