Watchdog: FBI Lags Two Years in DNA Cases

(CBS)  The FBI's forensic DNA case load is so backlogged that it would take two years to complete - even without any new cases added, according to a new report released by the Department of Justices' inspector general.

More than 3,200 backlogged DNA cases are still awaiting analysis as of March, and the number is growing. DNA analysis is a lengthy process, and it can take up to 600 days for FBI labs to provide testing results.

Read the Inspector General's Report

According to the report, missing persons cases represent the biggest portion of backlogged cases, comprising 39 percent of the total DNA backlog as of April 2010.

The backlog can have major consequences for law enforcement and counterterrorism investigations.

It "can extend the time it takes to link a perpetrator to a crime, free innocent persons from incarceration, or identify the remains of a missing person," according to the report.

The Inspector General says a boost in staffing would help but the FBI has failed to implement an $8.9 million automated laboratory information management system.

The system, called INNOVARi, has been delayed because of "portal deficiencies" and the Inspector General warns that further operational problems may loom.

[MekhongKurt]

I feel we need to keep in mind that the FBI, like just about every other law enforcement agency, could use some extra funding for this, although I realize that now isn't exactly the best of times to be talking about doing anything that will cost money. Others have made the point that spending by itself won't do the trick, and I agree. But if extra personnel are hired, then *fully and properly* trained, *then* given a resonable level of operational funding, this process can speed up dramatically (given the ideal, anyway).

The missing persons category has implications beyond providing a sense of closure for a victim's family. Clearing a missing person case through DNA confirmation of remains does that, of course, but it additionally frees up detectives since they can now close a case and move on to other cases -- meaning their department or agency doesn't need as many extra detectives. And that saves us, the taxpayers, money.

As for criminal cases, the sooner the guilty can be indisputably linked to a crime AND the innocent be indisputably shown NOT to be involved in a crime -- the better all around.

This is one instance of spending I personally could support.

[bobnjersey]

[DNA analysis is a lengthy process, and it can take up to 600 days for FBI labs to provide testing results. ]

what else are they 'not doing' very well?

the fbi is looking a bit like the 'new motor vehicle bureau'.

[bradkt1]

I fail to see any connection between hiring human beings to perform DNA testing and failing to implement a computerized data management system.

This happens all the time in the government...at every level. Any so-called "productivity gains" to be obtained from the use of some brand new data processing system are totally lost if the people who are supposed to use the system don't like it or don't know how to use it. In fact, when the new system is implemented, it usually slows down things even more because the users haven't been properly trained and so anything they can to avoid using it.

Maybe the next time the government ought to try consulting with the people who do the job about what their needs actually are before they turn their jobs upside down in the name of "achieving productivity" and screw everything up in the process.

[Simifanene]

Thats not right. A man was just released from a jail, for a crime that enhanced interrogation tequniques pushed him over the edge as he grieved for his dead daughter and friend. The Minnessota Prosectuto had the perpetrators dna. It never matched the fathers that spent five long unbearable years in a American prison for something he was cohercied by the police and framed by the prosecutor. The FBI knows how critical this evidence is and I would say they are just stalling dna test to have more time for enhanced interogation. Cheney said it was fair, don't yell at me. There's no excuse for not immediatley diagnoising DNA. That poor man who servered five years for murder & worse, was innocent. The DNA they had from the beginning proved it five years later. I guess every profession has their bad people. Our justice systme must change. It must start weeding out the bad police, and stop paternal protection of each other. The good cops left should be promoted to positions of leadership. The good old boy system has to change, from the smallest cop to the highest judge. Only the best deserve the privilege to serve.

[DocD--2008]

In that case, it should have been found to be Prosecutorial misconduct and the Prosecutor should be jailed.

You are right the system needs changing, the biggest change is to outlaw lawyers and get rid of judges that are lawyers. Go back to common sense and truth filled courts and elected judges, back to the whole truth and not just yes or no answers so I can make you look bad. Lawyers have done nothing but create a bunch of loopholes that each side tries to jump through and stop the other side from getting through, to them its about winning or losing not about justice. It needs to go back to being about justice and truth, not stories to make TV shows out of. Lawyers and judges are the scum of the earth and most lawyers will tell you they agree with that.

[GunsInTheSky]

No problem. Just hold the people in prision until the gov't figure out how to prosecute them.

No one has a problem with that....ummm, right?