Moving in the Wrong Direction
The inclusion of arrestees’ DNA in forensic databases raises several social justice and privacy concerns, which are discussed at length in Playing the Gene Card? and a recent front page article in the New York Times. But we should all give pause to this rapid expansion from their original conception as repositories for only the most heinous convicted criminals to now, where in some states, being accused of felonies as unremarkable as writing a bad check might land you in one of these databases.