America's National DNA Database

The President of the United States should consider placing everyone in America on a national DNA database to help with its ongoing attempts to maintain law and order more effectively. The punishments handed out for crimes committed in the United States are, in general, of the right level of severity, yet crime still seems to be increasing (as it does practically everywhere else in the world). It is a well known fact that levels of criminality in the wider population diminish significantly when crime is punished promptly (see other posts). Today's criminal processing procedures are, rightly or wrongly, somewhat lengthy and it can take months or even years before a case gets to court. These time delays are often attributed to the gathering of sufficient evidence before a trial can even begin. DNA profiling, however, offers a method of obtaining the required evidence very quickly and thus proceedings can be speeded up quite considerably. Of course, the DNA system in not perfect, but the overwhelming success of the technique in a number of high profile cases around the globe should provide more than enough incentive to set up a DNA database at least at a national level. In the future, particularly in light of advances in supercomputing and the development of the Grid, there may be a case for constructing a global DNA database, with the ability to hold records for every human being on the planet.