CRIME WAITS FOR NO MAN; CANADA'S DNA DATA BANK COULD BE A HUGE BOON TO
POLICE, BUT THE GOVERNMENT'S FOOT-DRAGGING AND KOWTOWING TO SPECIAL INTEREST
GROUPS IS BLUNTING ITS EFFECTIVENESS
The Ottawa Sun
Fri 29 Nov 2002
Comment
15
BY MICHAEL HARRIS, TORONTO SUN

There are 125 unidentified human remains at the coroner's office in British
Columbia. Judy Peterson can't help wondering if one of them is her daughter,
Lindsey.
On August 2, 1993, the 14-year-old vanished on her way to see friends in
nearby Courtenay. Police have never been able to find either her body or the
person Judy Peterson believes murdered her daughter.

"There are currently over 6,000 unidentified DNA samples from crime
scenes -- what if Lindsey's DNA was found at a crime scene? Without changes
to the DNA legislation, I will never know."

That's because Canada doesn't have a National Missing Persons Data Bank
computer linked to a Crime Scene Index and a Convicted Offender Index -- or,
for that matter, a lot of other things that would improve the federal DNA
statute.

It is not that the Chretien government is saying no to amendments. In fact,
the Justice Department is currently wrapping up a consultation on Canada's
two year old DNA Identification Act. Under the terms of Bill C-3, Parliament
has to review the legislation within five years of its passage, which means
in three years from now -- at least theoretically.

Consider two other pieces of federal legislation that had five-year reviews
built into them: The Corrections and Conditional Release Act, (CCRA) and the
mental health provisions of the Criminal Code, both passed in 1992. The CCRA
review began seven years after its passage. Although the government
responded to that review just before the 2000 election, as of this writing,
no bill has been brought forward incorporating the federal government's
commitment to changes. The bottom line is dismal: Ten years later, the
five-year review has produced no change.

In the case of the mental health provisions of the Criminal Code, the
government response has been a tortoise race between indifference and
bureaucracy. It took a staggering 10 years for the review of these
provisions to even begin. Worse, the government still hasn't responded to
the committee's recommendations.

Of the two things that Big Government routinely wastes, time and money, it
is usually a toss up to decide which is the most harmful to the public. In
the case of the DNA data bank, it is both. The average cost of a homicide
investigation in Canada is $750,000. The cost of administering a DNA test is
less than $100. As an investigative tool to help police in the most crucial
issue of all criminal investigations, identification of the perpetrator, a
revamped DNA data bank would save millions of tax dollars.

Making the changes to the legislation now, rather than in 10 years, would
save something even more precious than money; lives. The justice department
doesn't need to mull over the fruits of its public consultations before
improving the national DNA data bank. After two years of practical
experience, the soft spots in the system are well known to everyone,
including the officials who are conducting the consultation.

For starters, the federal government needs to expand the number of offenders
from which it can retroactively take DNA samples. At present, the law
upholds taking samples from dangerous offenders, killers who have murdered
more than one person at different times, and repeat sex offenders. These
restrictions are absurd. Every offender who commits one of the designated
offences should be compelled to supply a DNA sample. Why on earth would the
legislation exclude violent offenders who may have left a long, undetected
trail of serial-style offences behind them?

It is also clear that the list of primary designated offences must be
expanded. Indecent assault and gross indecency are considered by police to
be classic pedophile offences committed by serial offenders, exactly the
category of crime the DNA data bank can help detect. The odds of detection
would be even more in favour of detection if the data bank were linked to
the new national Sex Offender Registry. Break and enter with intent and
robbery should also be added to the list, since there have been more matches
or "hits" in the data bank from break and enter and robbery offences than
for murder or attempted murder.

This last point is crucial. Dr. Peter Collins has reported to the OPP that
70-80% of those convicted of their first sex offence have property crimes on
their records. If we already had such offenders' DNA on file from a break
and enter, any DNA found at a violent crime scene could be immediately
compared for a possible match. The argument gets stronger when you consider
that two-thirds of the people who committed murder in Canada last year had
previous criminal records.

CRIMES SOLVED

Canada's experience with the national DNA data bank is already a partial
success story. In the first year of its existence, it had 25 hits. By the
end of the second year, that number had risen to 305. Thanks to a match
between a Crime Scene Index and a Convicted Offender Index, police were able
to solve two serious crimes in Ontario, a nine-year-old homicide in Peel,
and a string of serial rapes in two Canadian provinces and an American
state.

Since authorities routinely photograph and fingerprint convicted felons, it
is difficult to believe that victims of crime such as Judy Peterson are
still waiting for the full benefits of modern forensic science to resolve
their predicaments. According to Michael Zigayer, the Justice Department's
top dog in the criminal law policy section, privacy advocates and feminist
groups objected to a missing persons DNA data bank and that is why there is
no plan to include one in the revised act.

How nice that the Justice Department has responded to submissions from the
public. I wonder, though, what Mr. Zigayer and his colleagues plan to do
about the submission of a mother in B.C. who has a permanently empty place
at her Christmas table.