DNA Retention Policies: The Potential Contribution of Criminal Career Research

Abstract

The S & Marper judgment of the European Court of Human Rights held that the DNA samples of individuals arrested but subsequently cleared should be discarded from the national DNA database. Though the authors are sympathetic to the privacy concerns associated with DNA retention policies, the present paper contends that the concepts and methods of criminal career research should be brought to bear on the retention issue. A worked example showing how this might be carried out for convicted offenders is provided using data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, a prospective longitudinal follow-up of 411 working-class London males. The analyses illustrate the potential for crime detection after hypothetical years of DNA retention, in relation to age of onset and offence type. Findings suggest that the selective deletion of the DNA profiles of younger offenders may be particularly detrimental for subsequent detection rates, and that the seriousness of the offence at first contact may not be an accurate criterion in the decision to delete or retain DNA information. The study also highlights some of the advantages and problems associated with DNA retention policies.