Building a fairer NYPD DNA bank
Just before the COVID-19 outbreak struck in New York, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea issued a blueprint for changing how the NYPD collects DNA in criminal cases. As chief of detectives, I have executed this vision, seeking to improve fairness and transparency while ensuring this tool can bring justice for victims of some of the most heinous crimes such as rape or murder.
A top priority was ensuring that no person’s DNA profile will remain permanently in the database when they have never been convicted or arrested for a crime. No one deserves that level of humiliation. Seven months later, the NYPD has delivered on Shea’s vision, recommending the permanent removal of approximately 2,500 of the more than 6,000 profiles reviewed to date. For the rest of the profiles so far reviewed, they will remain in the database because they are from either convicted offenders or a suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation or prosecution.
Our work on this DNA collection and retention represents what fair and balanced criminal justice system reform should look like.
At this moment, we are reviewing every DNA profile that is at least two years old. Additionally, our ongoing audits of DNA profiles will be strengthened by even deeper analyses once every four years with the aim of continuing to maintain the most efficient database. We have developed a better exit path: We have removed the need for a court order to delete a DNA profile.
Regarding collection of DNA, the NYPD has rewritten the policies for those instances when suspects consent to providing a DNA sample. There is a new consent form that clearly explains to subjects that their willingness to provide a DNA sample may result in their DNA profiles being stored in a local database. More importantly, these new forms make crystal clear that subjects can refuse to provide their consent. This assimilates transparency and accountability with responsibility.
The NYPD has also strictly limited the collection of DNA from juvenile suspects to the most serious of crimes: violent felonies, sex crimes and firearms offenses. These standards will also apply to the way we sometimes collect DNA from items in ongoing investigations — known as abandonment DNA.
But even as we responded to criticisms by making sensible changes that are in line with our overall vision for smarter, more precise policing in the 21st century, we believe we must ensure the NYPD has access to the vital tools it needs to keep communities safe.
To drop this valuable science would be a grave mistake to anyone invested in transforming our criminal justice system by better ensuring citizens’ rights while continuing to keep New Yorkers safe. Shea and I pledge to keep moving forward in our collective mission to form a fairer, smarter criminal justice landscape for all.
To be sure, the use of the city’s suspect DNA database, maintained by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) has always been restrained, with 33,000 total profiles collected since 1997, when it was created. Our goal now is to make it even more focused, though no less effective: In the past five years, roughly 5,000 matches to suspects or arrestees have come from the city database. It plays a key role in solving murders and rapes, robberies and hate crimes; in identifying patterns, stopping recidivists and getting justice for victims.
Equally integral is DNA’s role in exonerating the innocent: Potential suspects are routinely ruled out of investigations on the basis of DNA, sparing them the intrusion of further police inquiry. And that’s a key element that aids law enforcement agencies in dozens of other states with established statutory support for an arrestee database.
It is the NYPD’s civic responsibility to claim its seat at the table of criminal justice reform and to work with its government partners and community leaders to respect the rights of all New Yorkers while also working tirelessly to keep people safe.
Lapses in past reform efforts must not be repeated. For reforms to truly serve all citizens, they cannot lead to unintended consequences for the innocent or translate into the weakening of consequences for those engaging in criminal behavior.
It is the NYPD’s strong belief that the next, deeper phase of criminal justice reform must not take valuable and common-sense tools away from committed law enforcement investigators or lead to the prohibitions of the legal use of science to catch those few hardened criminals who would do us harm.
DNA evidence is a vital tool for finding truth. It’s been around a long time. The law also allows the use of a local DNA database.
Let us not run from this issue, but continue to engage as partners and pursue the lawful ethical use of this vital tool in an evolved, enlightened way.
Harrison is chief of detectives at the NYPD.