Running Head: HOW DNA AND CRIMINAL PROFILING SOLVE CRIMES

Police Operations and Administration research paper:

How DNA and Criminal Profiling Solve Crimes

Sam Brandt

Miller-Motte College, Wilmington Campus

CJ230 Police Operations and Administration

Dr. Ame Frey

June 23rd, 2016

HOW DNA AND CRIMINAL PROFILING SOLVE CRIMES

Before technology and research was used to solve crimes, innocent people were

convicted or criminals were exonerated of all charges. Late in the 20th century, new methods of

convicting criminals emerged and helped keep the innocent from being wrongly accused. This

research will reveal to you how technology and science are used to solve crimes, including

information regarding what DNA is, sources of DNA, how DNA is processed, how criminal

profiling is done, what the benefits of criminal profiling are, what key cases have used criminal

profiling, and a summary of findings will be provided.

DNA is short for deoxyribonucleic acid, which is the hereditary cell linkage between a

person and family (U.S National Library Of Medicine, 2016). Almost all cells in a person’s

body contain the exact same DNA format. The majority of DNA can be found in the cell

nucleus and a tiny amount is found in the mitochondria (U.S National Library Of Medicine,

2016). There are four chemical bases of DNA, which are adenine, guanine, thymine, and

cysteine (U.S National Library Of Medicine, 2016). A human contains three billion bases and

around 99 percent of these bases are the same in all people (U.S National Library Of Medicine,

2016).

Looking at the bases there is a sequence or order that is found to give us details on an

organisms make up (U.S National Library Of Medicine, 2016). Each base in DNA pairs up with

one another and then connects with a phosphate or sugar molecule (U.S National Library Of

Medicine, 2016). The sugar and phosphate form a nucleotide. Nucleotides form in two long

strands that make a spiral called a double helix. Once the double helix develops it takes the

shape of a ladder with base pairs developing on the ladder rungs and on the sides phosphate and

sugar molecules develop (U.S National Library Of Medicine, 2016).

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HOW DNA AND CRIMINAL PROFILING SOLVE CRIMES

Lastly one property of DNA that is important is that it can copy its self (U.S National

Library Of Medicine, 2016). The double helix from each strand of DNA contains a pattern for

copying the sequences of bases. This process is extremely important because each new cell

needs to contain the same DNA as the old one (U.S National Library Of Medicine, 2016).

There are a couple different types of evidence used for DNA. The first type is physical

evidence, which is anything you can touch (National Institue of Justice , 2012). Second is

biological evidence this type of evidence can be hard to see or in some cases is not visible to the

naked eye, which would need to be taken to a laboratory to be further looked at. Possible

sources of DNA can be blood, sweat, dandruff, mucus, semen, saliva, and earwax (National

Institue of Justice , 2012).

It is important when finding DNA at a crime scene that you label what it is and the

condition you found it in, such as wet or dry (National Institue of Justice , 2012). When on a

crime scene it is important to prevent the DNA evidence from getting contaminated since this

type of evidence is the most sensitive (National Institue of Justice , 2012). All personnel on the

scene should refrain from eating, drinking, littering or smoking to limit the risk of anything

becoming contaminated (National Institue of Justice , 2012).

The first step in the DNA process is to first have a plan with the evidence collection team

(National Forensic Science Technology Center, 2013). There are different tools used for

documentation of the crime scene like cameras, video recorders, and a 3D scanner. As the team

of investigators is conducting the process, it is extremely important they follow the proper

protocols when it comes to collecting, packaging, and preserving evidence (National Forensic

Science Technology Center, 2013). Evidence found at the crime scene can be easily disrupted if

the wrong light sources are used on it.

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HOW DNA AND CRIMINAL PROFILING SOLVE CRIMES

A pivotal part to ensuring evidence was collected is to do a secondary review of the area.

Once all evidence has been collected it must be logged into an inventory log sheet, which helps

to maintain accountability for all pieces of evidence (National Forensic Science Technology

Center, 2013). All pictures of the evidence must match the description next to them and the

crime scene report (National Forensic Science Technology Center, 2013).

Criminal profiling was first used around 1880 (Winerman, 2004). Before criminal

profiling was present in the United States, profilers relied heavily on their intuition and informal

studies. In 1974, the FBI started the Behavioral Science Unit used to investigate crimes of

homicide and rape (Winerman, 2004). FBI agents gain insight into murderers behavior through

asking questions. Some questions could be what plan or fantasy was the murderer using, did it

take place before the crime, and did the disposal of the body take place at the same scene of the

crime or somewhere else (Winerman, 2004). The goal of profiling is to identify all the

characteristics of a perpetrator and how they committed the crime. When research is conducted,

criminal profile statistical methods are used to group together offenders behaviors, which is the

scientific way to build defensible classification of offenders (Winerman, 2004).

Utilizing criminal profiling can be beneficial in many aspects to help solve a crime (Asia-

Pacific, 2014). The first is it provides victim protection, so people can be warned ahead of time

not to go to a certain area and become a victim of a crime. Also criminal profiling uses personal

characteristics of a potential suspect, which can be demographics, martial status, age, criminal

history and even particular personality the suspect has (Asia-Pacific, 2014). Lastly the

information collected from criminal profiling helps to give law enforcement a little bit of an idea

as to who might have committed the crime (Asia-Pacific, 2014).

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HOW DNA AND CRIMINAL PROFILING SOLVE CRIMES

On the morning of April 19th 1995 Timothy McVeigh parked a truck in front of the

Oklahoma federal building (Federal Bureau of Investigations, 2016). The truck exploded around

9:02 am taking the lives of 168 people. This particular case used criminal profiling to track

down Timothy McVeigh (Federal Bureau of Investigations, 2016). A couple days after the

incident a sketch was released of Timothy McVeigh and people identified him and turned the

information of his location to law enforcement (Federal Bureau of Investigations, 2016).

In conclusion we can see there are many benefits of criminal profiling and DNA. Over

the years since these discoveries many cases have been solved. DNA, I feel, is one of the best

tools to find criminals guilty and free the innocent. In today’s world, no matter how smooth a

criminal may think they are, we are able to analyze something as small as an eyelash to give us

great details to finding the suspect of a crime. When these two tools are applied properly the

results can provide leads and closure for families who lost loved ones from incidents.

This research will reveal to you how technology and science are used to solve crimes,

including information regarding what DNA is, sources of DNA, how DNA is processed, how

criminal profiling is done, what the benefits of criminal profiling are, what key cases have used

criminal profiling, and a summary of findings will be provided.

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HOW DNA AND CRIMINAL PROFILING SOLVE CRIMES

References

Asia-Pacific. (2014). Pros And Cons Of Criminal Profiling. Retrieved May 18, 2016, from Asia-

Pacific Economics Blog: http://apecsec.org/pros-and-cons-of-criminal-profiling/

Federal Bureau of Investigations. (2016). Terror Hits Home: The Oklahoma City Bombing.

Retrieved May 18, 2016, from The FBI: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-

cases/oklahoma-city-bombing

National Forensic Science Technology Center. (2013). How Its Done . Retrieved May 18, 2016,

from A Simplified Guide To Crime Scene Investigation :

http://www.forensicsciencesimplified.org/csi/how.html

National Institue of Justice . (2012). DNA Evidence: Basics of Identifying, Gathering and

Transporting. Retrieved May 18, 2016, from National Institue of Justice :

http://www.nij.gov/topics/forensics/evidence/dna/basics/pages/identifying-to-

transporting.aspx

U.S National Library Of Medicine. (2016). What is DNA? . Retrieved May 18, 2016, from

Genetics Home Reference : https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/basics/dna

WINERMAN, L. (2004). Criminal profiling: the reality behind the myth. Retrieved May 18,

2016, from American Psychological Association :

http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/criminal.aspx

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