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Familial Searching

Law Enforcement Application

pie chart: 46 percent of inmates have a close relative with a history of incarceration. 54 percent of inmates do not have a close releative with a history of incarceration.

The value of familial searching may be further supported by survey results from a United States Department of Justice survey that indicated 46% of all jail inmates have at least one close relative who has been incarcerated.31 If the matching offender is not yet in the offender databank, his close relative may be in there.

At that point law enforcement can utilize this investigative lead to determine on which close family member to focus their investigation. Law enforcement can then use any number of lawful investigative techniques to identify the suspect family member, obtain a DNA sample, and determine whether there is a match between the reference sample and the crime scene evidence.

The process is not guaranteed to succeed. For starters, it can only succeed if there is a close relative in the database.

31 F.R. Bieber, C.H. Brenner, D. Lazar, Finding Criminals Through DNA of Their Relatives, Science 312 (2006) 1315–1316.


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