• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Crime / Courts / New state crime lab already hit with backlog

New state crime lab already hit with backlog

July 21, 2005 By admin

Officials say the new state crime lab in Ankeny faces a daunting new job — taking DNA samples from every criminal in the state. Laboratory Administrator Jerry Brown says even with the expanded new facility, samples are already getting backlogged because of a new law requiring a genetic record be made on every offender. Brown says they did D-N-A testing before in the old — and much smaller — facility, but only for a small number of crimes. “Now it encompasses all the crimes of anybody that’s convicted within the state,” Brown says. He says the change was included in a bill signed by the governor last month that aimed to crackdown on sex offenders. “Now it encompasses all the crimes of anybody that’s convicted within the state,” says Brown. At first, they expect to have as many as 20,000 cases a year, as they sample everyone in every prison and jail.

Eventually, the rate’s expected to settle down to 8,000 a year as they sample the D-N-A of just the new offenders going into the system. Brown says the lab still depends on collection of D-N-A at crime scenes, accidents and other locations by local law-enforcement officers and investigators. He says there’s always going to be that manual labor — “finding the D-N-A, finding the samples, cutting them out, preparing them, that’s never going to change.” Brown predicts it will take the staff three years to deal with recording DNA samples from every person in the state’s criminal justice system.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Crime / Courts

Featured Stories

Governor signs Iowa Renewable Fuels Standard into law

Jury returns guilty verdict in shooting death of State Trooper

A haboob, a dust storm black out, hits northwest Iowa

Summit has easements for 20% of carbon pipeline route through Iowa

Morel mushroom hunters on hold without warmer conditions

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Iowa’s Huckstorf garners national award

Iowa Special Olympics Summer games set to open in Ames

Radio Iowa/Baseball Coaches Association High School Poll 5/16/22

Iowa assistant coach Kirk Speraw to retire

Northern Iowa prepares for Missouri Valley Conference softball tournament

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2022 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC