More Aggressive Action from New York On DNA Databases

Posted by Osagie K. Obasogie October 31, 2010
Biopolitical Times
Earlier this year, Governor David Paterson tried to make New York a trailblazer in expanding its DNA database by proposing legislation that requires those convicted of low-level misdemeanors to submit samples.  If the governor has his way, New York would become the first state to require such profiles to sit indistinguishably alongside samples from murderers, rapist, and other felons; trespassers would be given the same amount of forensic scrutiny as dangerous criminals each time the database is searched for a match.

This proposal is moving slowly through the state legislature. It seems to be a bit too slow for some. Which may be why State Division of Criminal Justice Service Acting Commissioner Sean M. Byrne is taking things in his own hands. In August, he sent a letter to each one of New York’s district attorneys “strongly encourag[ing] [them] to require a DNA sample as a condition of all plea bargains.”

Byrne argues that this measure – in effect, an end run around the legislature’s deliberations – is a “stop gap remedy to Albany gridlock” that closes a “gaping and dangerous loophole.” According to his numbers, 54 percent of people convicted of NY penal code violations do not submit DNA samples.

This shift in policy means that New Yorkers who plead to a lesser offense that might not, by law, require submitting a DNA sample are now submitting such samples simply because DAs have been instructed to make it part of the plea deal.  

The bar for including individuals’ DNA in forensic databases woefully drops again.