DNA fingerprinting and its impact on the United Kingdom

DNA Fingerprinting in UK

The Impact of DNA Fingerprinting in the United Kingdom: A Case Study

The Introduction/Development of DNA Fingerprinting

The use of DNA in the tracking and prosecuting of suspected criminals has gained great fame in recent years due to its frequent appearance in television crime dramas. The technology is not, of course, quite the silver bullet that such programs make it out to be, but it still remarkable in its ability and its applications -- and it is relatively new, as well. Developed in 1985 by Sir Alec Jeffreys, the rise in the use and acceptance of DNA fingerprinting technology has been meteoric when compared to other methods of investigation and criminal prosecution (DNA's Detective Story 2004). Ironically, despite its now widespread use by police and security agencies around the world, including the United Kingdom's Home Office, the first milestone in the advent of DNA identification came in defending someone against the Home Office -- Dr. Jeffreys was able to prove that a Ghanian boy about to be deported really was the son of the citizen claiming to be his mother, and that all of her children also shared the same father (DNA's Detective Story 2004). After the success of this application, the technology spread quickly to law enforcement uses.

Though the introduction of the technology into practice might have been quick and straightforward, the development of the technology itself was anything but. Though the process has been changed and refined today, Jeffreys' original process for DNA profiling required large samples of tissue (usually hair) or bodily fluid, from which DNA would be extracted via hot salt water, then cultured and electronically organized into pieces of varying length (Jeffreys 2005). It is the varying length -- the number of base pairs -- present in certain places on the DNA strand that results in the colored bands that make up a DNA profile (Jeffreys 2005; BBC 2009).

II. Background Information on the United Kingdom

The government of the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, with an unwritten constitution of statues and common law/practice and a severely limited monarch (DirectGov 2009). The basic form of the government under this unwritten constitution is a parliamentary democracy, though only one house of parliament (the House of Commons) is made up of elected representatives; the House of Lords contains lifetime appointments, bishops in the Church of England, and even many hereditary representatives (DirectGov 2009). With a GDP of $2.787 trillion and a variety of products for large-scale export, including beef, sheep, poultry, cereals, and other agricultural products, the UK was better situated than many countries for the current economic crisis; it's current unemployment rate is only 5.5%, compared to the 7.5% and rising rate in the United States, and the latest available data shows a much slower-shrinking economy tan in previous quarters (Office of National Statistics 2009).

English is by far the most spoken language in the United Kingdom, with Welsh also being spoken by a sizeable population in the geographical region of Wales and, to a lesser extent, Scottish Gaelic being spoken in the north. Religion is also fairly homogenous in the nation, with 71.6% of UK citizens identifying as some type of Christian, with only 2.7% claiming Muslim identification and 1% Hindu. Meanwhile, 23.1% of the population either refused to state their religion or does not affiliate themselves with any religion (Office of National Statistics 2009).

III. Impact of DNA Fingerprinting on UK Society

The impact that DNA fingerprinting has had on the different sections and levels of society in the United Kingdom is anything but clear-cut. The benefits that DNA fingerprinting has brought to law enforcement agencies have also brought controversy to the government's doorstep; the establishment of the National DNA Database has led to fears about the collection and maintenance of DNA samples and profiles of citizens that have not been convicted of a crime, and in many instances were not even charged (Jobling & Gill 2004, pp. 745). There is also concern about the cost of the amount of DNA fingerprinting that occurs due to these lax privacy rules, although the amount sent is still not incredibly significant when balanced against overall defense spending (Office of National Statistics 2009).

The privacy concerns form the bulk of the negative impact of DNA fingerprinting on United Kingdom society, and they are not at all unfounded. Several schools have implemented locks and record keeping mechanisms that depend upon a child's fingerprints (traditional, not DNA) (Edinformatics). These fingerprint mechanisms are used to track money for school meals, to replace library cards, and to alow access to school buildings and rooms in an attempt to cut down on the rate of skipping school -- and the British government is allowed to collect and maintain fingerprint records without parental consent (Edinformatics). There are serious concerns that the relatively new technology of DNA fingerprinting might also be implemented along the same lines, without the right of citizens to deny consent, leading to a DNA database that includes every child who attends school in the United Kingdom.

There are also many positive impacts that the technology has had on UK society. Not only has DNA fingerprinting allowed many cases to be solved that would otherwise go un-prosecuted and unclosed, and many more to be solved faster and more conclusively than they otherwise would be, but Dr. Jeffreys believes that the near future will allow for near-instantaneous DNA fingerprinting results using portable units at the scene of a crime (Jeffreys 2005, pp. 1038-9). Jeffreys also sees the same developments that cause privacy concerns for others as future positive applications of DNA fingerprinting, including tracking credit card accounts and providing travel security with a passport-like function (Jeffreys 2005, pp. 1039). Likewise, the National DNA Database established in 1995 is the largest database of its kind in the world with 2.7 million separate records, which serves as both a specific deterrent to criminals and a testament to the overall strength of the United Kingdom's law enforcement (Home Office 2006, pp. 4). In addition, though there is no direct economic benefit from the use of DNA fingerprinting in the filed of criminal justice, the medical industry and private labs have benefited enormously from the technological advances made, improving the economy overall (Henderson 2009).

IV. Moral and Ethical Issues of DNA Fingerprinting

Several lawsuits have already taken place in the United Kingdom regarding privacy matters and the unlimited law enforcement and military organizations have to the National DNA Database, spurred in part by Prime Minister Tony Blair's 2000 announcement that the DNA expansion program would contain "virtually the entire active criminal population" (Wallace 2006). There are fears that this could lead to unnecessary arrests and even wrongful convictions, as anyone in the database even for a simple detention could possibly be brought into an investigation simply on the basis of an eyelash or drop of saliva being found at the scene.