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P R O C E E D I N G S
Laboratory Funding Working Group Report and Discussion CHAIRPERSON ABRAHAMSON: We are now going back and taking up the laboratory funding working group. Woody, Lisa and Chris will present this. DIRECTOR ASPLEN: I think at this point in time, mostly Woody, because when we found out that Paul Ferrara could not attend, when Woody got here, I asked him if he would please present the report from the lab funding group. So he spent last night developing a PowerPoint presentation on it. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: It was easier than writing it down on a tablet. I forgot how to use a pen. [Pause.] COMMISSIONER CLARKE: This is pretty scary when a lawyer is about to talk to you about laboratory funding involving science. As I've told Lisa many times, I went into law because I didn't like science or math, so something really went wrong somewhere. DIRECTOR ASPLEN: Folks, why don't we take this opportunity to take a five or ten minute break, then we'll come back and start back up. [Recess.] DIRECTOR ASPLEN: Okay. Under the headline of "things happen for a reason," because we had this little unscheduled break at this time, I thought I'd go back to my room and get the rest of my things that I haven't already put into my car and check out, rather than like I was going to do at the original scheduled break time. Well, I get to my room and they're already cleaning my room and the woman is just about finished and she is literally dumping my trashcan into the cart trash. What do you think was in the trash can? My plane ticket. So because of this little break, I do, in fact, have my plane ticket that I otherwise would not have. So things happen for a reason. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: Chris, I knew that was going to happen. I knew that's what was going to happen, so that's why we had these technical troubles. Again, this is the danger of lawyer venturing into science, but what I'm going to try to do and give you a few visuals to help, I am going to plead that Lisa and Chris help me, because unfortunately, Paul Ferrara, our chair, and Cecilia Krauss, couldn't make it to the meeting here. So you're in my hands, but fortunately we have to other individuals that were there as well. So what I'm going to try to do over the next 20 minutes, maybe 15-20 minutes or so is give you some of the highlights of what our laboratory funding issues working group has been dealing with and then hopefully solicit your guidance for our future efforts in that regard. You're going to see CODIS at the top of most of these slides at the beginning because that's actually a good deal of what we've been dealing with, as you know, initially, especially with regard to backlog issues and so on. We know that technology is in place.
We have the technology currently to deal with obviously the collection of samples from convicted offenders, storage of those samples, profiling of those samples, we know even the current technology exists to profile, and type of 13 core loci that CODIS has described. And lastly, we know the architecture, as the FBI has described, as far as CODIS is concerned, for input of that data, storage of that data, and searching of that data currently exists. So that's, in many respects, the good news about where we are currently from a technology standpoint. Unfortunately, there are only a few jurisdictions, I think, we think, that are successfully employing this existing technology, and we'll get into a little bit about the reasons for that. But the reasons, I should say, with regard to the areas that those jurisdictions are successful, and we've heard how Dave Coffman, for example, in Florida, has described to us yesterday a jurisdiction that's doing relatively well in that regard, as is Virginia and a few other jurisdictions that are able to collect these samples. They are able to database -- that is, in the sense of profiling those convicted offender samples that they do collect and are able to make forensic matches and to help investigations in that regard. So we see some jurisdictions able to use this existing technology under their statutory frameworks in their individual jurisdictions, so we know it can work fairly well. But what are the problems that we've identified? The problems are obviously backlog samples, samples that have been collected, but are sitting there and are not being profiled. Obviously, if they're not being typed, they're not being entered into CODIS databases. They're not being entered into even local or state databases, as well. There are, as we've also found, tremendous collection difficulties, for some of the reasons that I'll describe to you in a little bit, and obviously there are tremendous difficulties with case work laboratory resources. Laboratories actually conducting case work in criminal cases. A, first of all, case load problems, not enough analysts, not enough funding to deal with those cases themselves, which strains even more their ability to deal with convicted offender sampling, convicted offender profiling, and ultimately entry into CODIS itself. What are some of the suggested solutions? And we dealt early on and have obviously made the recommendation to this Commission, which passed that recommendation on to the Attorney General, to deal with these backlog samples, and we identified that approximate figure, in large part, due to much of the effort from Steve Nasgoda and Dawn Herkenham, from the FBI at that time, trying to identify how many samples we're talking about, and that number that was described to us was in the area of approximately 450,000 stored, but backlogged -- that is, not profiled -- convicted offender samples, and at an approximate figure of $50 per sample, we came up with that figure of $22.5 million, of which I think it's $15 million, as Chris described, is in the current budget that hopefully Congress will pass to help deal with this backlog of samples. So that's the approach that we took fairly early on. What about sample collection? And I want to get into some of the difficulties that we've identified. In my view, a good portion of that difficulty is the fact that, first of all, we have 50 states, although some of those states deal with that well, such as Florida, where there is a lot of consistency, I think, in terms of sample collection and some of the other states, like Virginia, as well, there are many, if not most, or by far the majority of states that not only have their own state system, but they deal with a system such as we have in California, it was 58 counties. Well, those 58 counties deal with this whole issue differently. There is very little consistency amongst the counties in our state in terms of collecting those samples. Now, the sites that those samples can be collected obviously have a great deal of impact on the success of collection. Our State Department of Corrections, like many prison systems across the United States, relatively speaking, deal with collection fairly well. They have the individual in the prison, the person is going to be an inmate in that prison for usually a substantial period of time, at least long enough to collect a blood sample, and the individuals are in place who can collect those samples, either phlebotomists, medical personnel, and so on. Where the system we've identified breaks down, to a larger extent, is when, A, an individual doesn't go to prison, that is, has been convicted of a qualifying crime, but isn't sent to prison. They're sent to local custody, so the jail systems, and they can deal with it somewhat well, because they, again, like prisons have individuals who are qualified to take these samples. But I think the biggest breakdown that we've all talked about is the probation situation, where the individual comes to court, either as someone who has been in custody, but is released on the date of sentencing, or just hasn't even been in custody on the date of sentencing, and the question becomes what do you do with those individuals, what are the various locations that those individuals can be dealt with. Our experience, and I think I mentioned this earlier, I don't believe I've mentioned it to the Commission, has been unfortunate. We had a system in place, and I'm talking about individuals who are not placed in custody at the time of sentencing, where, as a condition of their release, they're ordered to depart to -- I'm sorry -- to report to our local department of health to give a sample for CODIS purposes. The unfortunate problem was this worked okay, I think about half or maybe a little more than half, which is not obviously our goal, but in terms of the way the system was working, it wasn't too bad, would show up, individuals at the department of health would then take their sample and they would actually take a fingerprint. I think it was a thumbprint that was required. Our state legislature passed a new statute effective January 1st of last year, however, that required, in the giving of a known sample for CODIS purposes, that a palm print be given, as well. Our department of health personnel are not qualified to give palm prints and they immediately stopped taking any samples whatsoever. Now, that's an example of some of the difficulties procedurally when -- and I think as was identified yesterday, including by Dave Coffman, legislatures may have good goals in mind, but they pass legislation that somehow unbeknownst to them ends up torpedoing, to a large extent, the collection procedure. So consequently, our individuals who go to county jail and stay in custody, those samples are fairly well collected. The individuals who are released on the day of sentencing aren't collected at all and that continues to today, and obviously that has tremendous ramifications on the success of the system. The structure of each individual state, I think, also impacts this procedure tremendously. If it's a state laboratory system, wherein all samples are directed to state laboratories, there is a lot more consistency, I think, whether in Virginia or Florida, where many of those samples are going to the state system, that's to be contrasted with some of the larger states, like our own in California, where Jan Bashinski's laboratory, in general, is doing DNA case work for our smaller counties. Our larger counties don't use that process. We have our case work done by individual police departments, sheriff departments and so on. I think that impacts the collection process, as well. It leads to a lack of uniformity and a lack of consistency in collection of samples, reference of those samples to the state laboratory system, and then ultimately profiling of those samples and entry into the various databases. The questions that we want, frankly, to solicit your advice on, if possible, and hopefully this will generate some of your guidance, are with regard to those problems and those questions that arise and how to improve this system, where does the collection responsibility fall, where should it fall; what are the sample types that should be taken. Obviously, we're familiar with blood, we're familiar with saliva samples, and there are other samples obviously available as well. When should these samples be collected, what's the time in the process, what's the site, the actual physical location where it should occur, how should the samples be stored, how should data management be handled, who should be responsible for handling that data management and obviously funding, if not the most critical feature, as well. There are various sites that this collection can take place. It could be in the courtroom. An individual literally could be walked from the courtroom into a back room where there is an individual that can take the sample, whether it's a blood sample taken by qualified medical personnel or it could be something less than that. Obviously, the courthouse itself, somewhere in some general location, in some instances, courthouses literally have jails attached to them. So that's obviously another potential site. Obviously, individuals who qualify can be transported to other facilities for the taking of those particular samples. So those are some of the questions about collection. Some of the other possibilities are obviously different time periods in the criminal process itself. The previous ones I described to you are all based on sentencing, but obviously there are previous times, as well. There's arraignment. Obviously, an individual is not convicted of a charge at that time, but that's certainly a time in the criminal proceeding and, as we have discussed, as well, arrest as well. One benefit, at least as we discussed, and one major benefit of the arrest, in terms of just the collection process, is it's a fact or a time period, rather, where there are procedures in place already; namely, fingerprinting. Fingerprinting goes on at that time and we know from the experience of the last many decades that that process seems to wok fairly well. It's an identifiable site. Police personnel are familiar with it. They know about the process of fingerprinting. So at least it does exist as an analog that we could use in terms of collection of evidence, in many respects. As far as the samples themselves, blood obviously is in common usage and we've discussed how there are procedures in place to work well in terms of automation with no blood samples. With mouth swabs, there are certain failure rates and while they may be less intrusive, while personnel may be able to take them, and we know from experience some police personnel take good mouth swabs, others don't take good mouth swabs, so there is a greater risk of not obtaining the information that's needed for CODIS purposes. As I think I may have mentioned yesterday, some of these laser technologies were discussed in our working group as far as simplifying that process and literally having an individual convicted of a crime or arrested, if that's the time cite that's ultimately used, literally puts a finger inside a little machine that I think costs about two or $3,000, and it automatically does a little laser pricking of the skin, deposits the blood on a card, and the process is basically done, very quickly. So those are, again, some of the other sample processes that can be used. Data management, and, again, we brought up the question of responsibility, but there's a lot of aspects to managing this data and the individuals who have to be involved in that process. Obviously, the courts need to be involved, they are beginning the process, because they've convicted an individual of a crime, now that individual is either committed to state prison, committed to local custody, granted probation in the sense of being released, the court is triggering that event. There are corrections that are involved, whether at the prison level, where responsibility will lie to collect samples from those individuals, whether at the local custody level. As Dave pointed out yesterday, Dave Coffman, even private facilities. We have our own in San Diego. Literally, private contractors who bid on contracts to then run private jail facilities. Then what do you do with those individuals? They're obviously at a different level, as well. Law enforcement, probation and laboratories. All of those various groups have to be involved in dealing with this data management, because without proper data management, obviously this process won't work. Now, I had to throw this slide in for you, because as I was going through the research and development working group materials, I hearkened back to this slide and I show it to prosecutors around the country, warning them to never open any of these books. And I tell them that I've studied this for some time and I recognize the equal sign, I'm satisfied I'm know what that means, and this little symbol down here, I have a couple friends at work who have watches with that on it. But that's the extent of what that formula means to me. Model programs were a good deal of the emphasis of our discussion at our last meeting, as far as using model programs to create models that can be successfully used in this country. Those model programs, we felt, had to look at these various items; what can be the site of collections, who are the agencies; that is, the particular personnel involved in successful creation and institution of programs that can provide these CODIS samples and ultimately allow for a proper CODIS system to work in terms of databases and database searchings; what procedures should be used, what are the best procedures that we can see now and shortly in the future to collect samples; what about data networking. If I'm an end user, if I'm a law enforcement officer investigating a serious crime in my jurisdiction, how can I find out whether a suspect I have, for example, has given a sample in the past, or how can I find out, how widely can I search to help investigate this crime when I have biological evidence at this particular crime scene; what are the forms that need to be involved in dealing with this process, and obviously, extremely importantly, what type of training is necessary to be able to make these type of programs exist. We know that there is currently an inability to type all cases. That's simply a fact of the current not technology, but current devotion of resources in terms of laboratory personnel and funding laboratory space and so forth. So we know, as a result of that, that not all cases are submitted for DNA typing. Obviously, that's a good portion of the emphasis on the survey that PERF will be performing, that we discussed at our last working group meeting, as to help give us guidance about the number of cases that are out there. We know that of those cases, and I'm talking about all cases with biological evidence, many of them likely will end up in pleas of guilty. That's the way the criminal system works, for a variety of reasons. Not all of which are lack of courtrooms, although that's a huge consideration, but defendants plead guilty despite the availability of courtrooms. Either they can obtain a better sentence by plea bargaining or they plead guilty, asking the court to give them a better sentence, despite the fact that there is no plea arrangement between both that defendant and the prosecution agency involved, and there's many benefits to a defendant in trying to minimize their exposure. But we know also there are insufficient resources to do suspect cases and obviously it becomes even more exacerbated with non-suspect cases, and in many cases we know requests aren't even made. The evidence is seized, it's collected, it's forwarded to the crime laboratory or forwarded to the police agency in terms of storage in the property room, but the request isn't made for DNA to be done, again, for a variety of reasons. Some of the statistics that we dealt with at our last meeting, one of them, I think, is very instructive, I'm not going to get into all of them, but I think this one, in many respects, was some of the most instructive. From 1997 statistics, from the Bureau of Justice Services or Bureau of Justice Statistics, that there are approximately, although that doesn't look like an approximate number, over 230,000 convicted sex offenders who are either in prison or on probation. Now, that's not per year. That's the approximate number at that time in 1997. About 80 or almost 90,000 are in prison and a little over 100,000 on probation. That's just sex offenders. But the difficulty is -- not the difficulty -- the important point is the recidivism rate we know is high amongst those individuals. So that those individuals who are either released from prison or are on probation, which makes them subject to the commission of new crimes almost immediately, that those are the individuals we need to be concerned about. Now, that figure of $87,000 is an average cost for a forcible rape that was identified yesterday. Obviously, that's a soft number. Nobody would claim that that's any number that we can all rely upon. But it is, to some extent, instructive. One of the things we talked about was comparison of that cost with the cost of case work, and we spent a good deal of time at our working group meeting defining what constitutes a case for DNA examination purposes, and we came up with some various numbers to hopefully act as guides. One of those was that in a typical case, there are approximately 15 samples. Now, that might -- at least struck me, as a consumer, to be a little high, but it incorporates controls, because those represent samples that the laboratory has to devote time and money to to be able to test those controls as well. We figured it at an approximate level of 60 cases per analyst per year, that using these various math systems, including the cost of reagents, we came up with an approximate cost of $2,200 per case in terms of the analyst time, the laboratory's expenses, the cost of reagents and so on. That approximate figure apparently is fairly consistent with other estimates that other laboratories have made, as well. And then we made the comparison, going back to 1997 again, and just taking reported sexual assaults, again, based on DJS numbers, that of those approximately 100,000 reported sexual assaults in this country, multiplying that by 2,200, you come up with a number of about $220 million. I think I made the remark that that's not all that many F-16 fighter jets in one year, but nonetheless, it's a substantial figure. Then ultimately we made this comparison. For whatever value it has, we felt it had value. That was to compare that $220 million of typing all of those reported sexual assaults, I'll have a caveat to that in a moment, comparing that to the approximate cost of those sexual assaults in terms of the costs to the society, the costs to the victim and so on, in particular. We found a rather glaring number obviously, $220 million versus an approximate cost of obviously something in excess of $8 billion. So I think it could at least point out that the significance of these statistics and so on. Now, what are the realities or the caveats I mentioned? All sexual assaults are being profiled? No. We don't need to do that. Even of the reported sexual assaults, those that have biological evidence, which are high in sexual assaults obviously, because of the common transfer, but nonetheless, they can't all be profiled even with biological evidence. There has to be this process of prioritization. Now, that goes on at many levels in different jurisdictions, probably without a lot of consistency, but it deals with how important is this case. Now, some jurisdictions, in our working group meeting, we found out literally type all rape kits in all cases. That surprised me. That doesn't go on in my jurisdiction. We actually weed out a good portion of those, where we know a case will be involving an issue of consent and that, therefore, DNA results in that case, frankly, won't be helpful at all. We weed those out. Some jurisdictions do not. But the realities of today, we agreed, are obviously, for the necessity or prioritization, deciding which cases need DNA typing and of those cases, which samples within that case require DNA typing. Again, it's really deciding the level of service. Which crimes should DNA typing be provided for, which cases within those crime classifications should this service be available for, what about suspect versus non-suspect cases, and as far as those non-suspect cases, what's the extent, as we mentioned earlier about the survey, we're hopeful of having that information provided to us through use of that survey. And it's decision-making about what crimes. Now, ultimately, I'm hopeful that our working group will be able to come up with some figures about at what level of service -- let's take the level of service of sexual assaults and homicides. What I would say fairly commonly is what we're doing now. What's the cost of being able to perform that work on those cases? And then extending that to include cases like burglary, obviously, more along the British model, what's the cost nationally of doing that, so that we can get a better idea and present to you better approximations of what's involved. So that, hopefully, in a nutshell is basically where we are and now hopefully you can provide us some guidance on where you think we should be headed, as well. Now, if there are any questions, I'm going to divert them to Lisa. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. CHAIRPERSON ABRAHAMSON: Well done. COMMISSIONER DAVIS: You say you put that all together last night? COMMISSIONER CLARKE: Well, you know, I started writing notes, and then I thought, you know, it's faster just to type it. So the good news is PowerPoint is very user-friendly. If I could do it like this, you know it's user-friendly. COMMISSIONER BASHINSKI: Woody, on your last slide, the one comment I have when you're talking about extending things to burglary, you're now talking about another part of the infrastructure system that has to be considered, and that is the capacity of the police to collect evidence and process those crime scenes. Many, many agencies don't even process burglary scenes for fingerprints, much less DNA. So I think if you're going to extend that, and I think you should, you're going to have to address that issue, as well. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: Absolutely. In fact, I think I brought up about the collection. Frankly, in burglary cases, collection is going to be by patrol officers most of the time. Some jurisdictions have wonderful systems where they can investigate their burglaries. The City of San Diego, half of our burglaries are investigated, the other half don't even send a patrol officer out to the scene. That I'm sure varies nationally from one end of the spectrum to the other. COMMISSIONER SMITH: I was so gratified to read it, partly because I made remarks yesterday about the need for us to get information and use it on the probation and parole samples and all that, so I was very gratified to read it. My reservation has to do with the risks. The risks of entering into the economic analysis the way you have, I think there are risks and I think that you don't need to. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: You mean the cost of a rape or the other side? COMMISSIONER SMITH: Also, the cost of the -- COMMISSIONER CLARKE: Analysis? COMMISSIONER SMITH: Yes, because of points like the costs not accounted for. Cost of office and time and all that. It's fascinating work for economists. There fortunately are enough economists to do it. But when they do it, it's like the page you put up here on the board, it doesn't relate to our real questions. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: Right. I understand. COMMISSIONER SMITH: And when we try and do it, we make mistakes. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: Good point. COMMISSIONER BASHINSKI: On the flip-side, I think we need to do some cost analysis. It's critical if we're going to get support. COMMISSIONER SMITH: That's fine, but comparing the cost of one thing with the cost of another, down that road lies embarrassment or worse. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: I think that is a difficult area, I agree with you. You mean as opposed to the more naked costs, so to speak. COMMISSIONER SMITH: Yes, the naked costs, how much it costs to buy the reagents and how much reagents we need is a thing we can talk about. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: Sure. I don't think I disagree with you. CHAIRPERSON ABRAHAMSON: You can't put a cost on the quality of life. COMMISSIONER SMITH: People try. Economists do, but they monetize everything. They monetize the constitution. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: Exactly. COMMISSIONER SMITH: They do it a different way, a more direct and valuable way. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: You just never know what's going to happen in that courtroom. Thank you. [Applause.] MR. WARD: My name is Brian Ward. During the deliberations of the Commission, there has been a discussion regarding the challenges of the backlog and the database, and yesterday Dr. Davis referred to facilities, specifically a facility in Utah, which has extensive capacity to process a database of samples. I'm a member of the genomics industry and biotechnology specifically, and I would like to assure the Commission that these facilities do exist for high throughput of CODIS samples. For example, at our facility, we currently have capacity to process over 10,000 cases per week and as the Commission is deliberating how to approach backlog and how to make CODIS more available, I'd encourage them not to overlook the contributions of the genomics industry. COMMISSIONER BASHINSKI: Could I ask you to define cases? Are you talking about things like offender sample, are you talking about paternity which is three samples? MR. WARD: 13 STRs for CODIS databasing. COMMISSIONER BASHINSKI: So it's one sample, 13 loci. MR. WARD: Right. COMMISSIONER DAVIS: Are you pretty representative of what exists around the United States? MR. WARD: I think that we're fairly unique, but I think there are other genomics industries corporations that could develop this capacity. Our starting point was as a clinical sequencing facility for related diagnostics for breast and ovarian cancer, but there are a number of facilities that could develop this capacity in the future. We are just fortunate that we have this capacity right now. COMMISSIONER DAVIS: Is there any industry group that represents your group who can come up with propaganda, if you will, along these lines, educational propaganda, that is? Because there has been talk about sourcing out or out-sourcing rather and yet it's been sort of vague, as out-sourced to where, and who and what. I think now is the time for the industry to speak up. MR. WARD: I think that the industry is beginning to address those challenges as we speak. It's been a little bit fractionated, but under the guise of some bio industry, we hope that we can actually have a unified -- COMMISSIONER REINSTEIN: And do you agree with the $50 per sample amount or do you think that with these large numbers, that the amount will go down? MR. WARD: I think initially the $50 amount is an excellent starting point and one would always assume that there would be incremental gains with capacity going through, but $50. It's not so much the equipment that's required, it's the structure of the informatics to make the system flow through smoothly, so the development costs up front are significant. But they are in place now. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON ABRAHAMSON: Thank you. Chris, you wanted to get a sense of the Commission. COMMISSIONER SMITH: Yes. You will notice -- first of all, I certainly want to thank Woody for stepping in and giving the presentation. I also want to thank Cecelia Crouse for writing this report, which I think is really wonderful and lays out the issues and lays out the discussion that that working group has been having. She is tremendously valuable to the working group. However, you will notice that it's kind of split up into two areas, the database sample collection issue and the non-suspect case issue. In terms of the sample collection, what you will notice is that we recommend or the working group recommends the development of pilot programs. We talked a little bit about pilot programs yesterday. The working group saw this as a good mechanism to encourage the development of these different systems, model programs that other states could look at. Does the Commission feel like that that's the appropriate direction to go? If so, what we'll do is we'll have that group really work up a specific recommendation on that, that would say to the Attorney General we suggest, we recommend that you provide funding specifically for the development of pilot programs in these areas. And this is not an official vote. This is just I'm trying to get a sense. COMMISSIONER SMITH: To me, it makes sense. I mean, you've got to start off with individual demonstration projects. We can't come up with something for the whole United States. DIRECTOR ASPLEN: It's very different than the CODIS backlog situation in that you can't -- this is something which you can't throw a finite amount of money in it and have a substantial effect. COMMISSIONER SMITH: It sounds like there are different aspects, though, that are likely to be peculiar to jurisdictions. I mean, some jurisdictions, they're going to be essentially management problems within the probation and parole agencies. In other jurisdictions, a lack of site. So it strikes me as it would be useful rather -- I don't think there is great value myself or best value in a solicitation for pilot programs of a generic statewide kind for the entire process. It seems to me that the inquiries ought to be more specific than that, particularly on the site and method of collection. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: I think our suggestion was to look at the model programs. COMMISSIONER SMITH: I think, so, as a research proposition, to provide Federal funds to give incentives to state agencies to organize themselves to do that which they are charged to do may not be such a good idea, but I may be wrong. How much money do we have to give them to do the job they're charged to do by statute? COMMISSIONER DAVIS: Didn't we have dinner last night or somewhere in the hallway, there was a little question that came -- maybe it was at this table, I don't know, it all melds into one, but there was a little question that came up one time about -- maybe Jan brought it up -- that some of these agencies at the state level and local level are holding back hoping that Federal largesse is going to come in or their funding sources don't fund because they think that somewhere up there there is a wealth spring of money that's waiting to be sent down, so why should we spend our local money, let's wait and see what we can get out of the Feds. That may be a factor that we ought to consider in any of our deliberations, because if it's a real factor, it's going to impact negatively on any program we try to talk about. COMMISSIONER BASHINSKI: You said my point better than I would have said it, and I think it is a very big danger, it's already happened. It certainly has happened with the DNA Improvement Act funds, at least in my state. But I do think the funding of the sample collection, both the type of sample and an inexpensive, easy to use, reliable means, non-invasive, means that collection would be a very big contribution. DIRECTOR ASPLEN: It's anticipated that it's really systems development, not funding to do the collection or test it themselves. It's not -- it wasn't anticipated, and correct me if I'm wrong, Woody, that the money would be provided for the actual collection. COMMISSIONER BASHINSKI: No, but to develop a means of -- DIRECTOR ASPLEN: But rather to develop the systems themselves, which -- and the conversation that you're referring to was dinner last night, in a context of money for arrestees, if we're thinking about the same thing. That there may be a thought that maybe the Federal Government will come up with money to test arrestees and that maybe a statement should be made, don't think that way, because that won't happen. COMMISSIONER BASHINSKI: Actually, my point was broader, that there are many things in which -- that's one, but just the general doing of the job that you're there to do, the states, if they want to defer to Federal funding, are not going to pick up the responsibility that really is and should be theirs. COMMISSIONER SMITH: But if the technology developments that you speak of are pressed, then some of the other difficulties that are raised by agencies when I ask them about this become much less impressive. So the Federal involvement in making easier the collection, the actual collection of the sample from the person who is before you, that problem, the help there seems to me to be both very important, appropriately Federal, and may be a pre-condition for an effective program anyway. But, also, there are two separate issues here. One has to do with the very large number of people now on probation and parole who weren't essentially put through any process for collecting their DNA at an earlier time and we knew where they were. Then there is a separate question about how we're going to do it in the future. I think separating those two questions out is important, too. Developing systems for future assurance and ease and efficiency of collection is one kind of thing, but trying to get these agencies to go get the samples that are now owed is another kind of thing. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: I talked about the owed samples and the difficulty with trying to retrieve those. COMMISSIONER SMITH: But the extent of that difficulty is we don't know where they are. I think I really feel like this Commission should put a clear message out there that that's not an acceptable condition for us to be in. And the fact that we might, in the future, be able to collect DNA from offenders who can owe it, at a time when we know where they are, pales a little bit if, after we match it with a crime scene, we don't know where they are. So the underlying problem here is the lack of operational capacity of probation and parole agencies, for which funding on the DNA side is going to be insufficient anyway. So I really do think it's important here, more important than recommendations about pilot programs, is a recommendation about getting these agencies to find out where the people are that they're supposed to be supervising, if that's the problem, and in some jurisdictions, it surely is. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: I think a lot of this represents a large hurdle and one of the comparisons is, for instance, in our community of about three million people, we have about 500,000 warrants of arrest out for people who -- obviously, it's not 500,000 different people, but nonetheless -- COMMISSIONER SMITH: An awful lot of them were aware they were the last time we saw them. COMMISSIONER CLARKE: That's right. COMMISSIONER SMITH: I mean, we simply don't bother, right? And not bothering is a problem in its own right, just highlighted by our desire to have the DNA. COMMISSIONER BASHINSKI: It occurs to me that we have, in a way, an internal PR problem within the system. Just as we want to have police officers aware of DNA, if all the probation officer and correctional officers had a level of awareness of the importance of following up on these people and getting these samples, we might see more compliance. I don't know if there is any kind of formal or organized way in which we could address this, but this little pamphlet that we have for law enforcement officers could be given to probation officers. They would understand maybe more why it's important for them to do what -- COMMISSIONER SMITH: Well, the APPA is an organization in its own right and they are understandably in the throws of an identity crisis and sort of midlife crisis, because of a failure to invest in their business by the public purse. So there is an awful lot of activity in that community trying to figure out how to create value. That's a big problem for them. CHAIRPERSON ABRAHAMSON: What is the? COMMISSIONER SMITH: The American Parole and Probation Association. And their leadership is aggressive and creative and I have a feeling that a challenge to them to get something done here would be appropriate and if it's not going to issue either from this Commission or through its process, then I think we missed an opportunity. CHAIRPERSON ABRAHAMSON: That may be a good place to both end and start and maybe for the next meeting we want to invite one of the offices and talk about that. COMMISSIONER SMITH: That's a good idea. COMMISSIONER GAHN: And something else, it raises the consciousness there that there is value to be had for their executing this job. CHAIRPERSON ABRAHAMSON: Okay. Ron, and then we'll go to East Kentucky. COMMISSIONER REINSTEIN: Mike and I were talking yesterday, next year is their national millennium convention and I think it might be a good time to maybe put on a program in one of their general sessions regarding the work of the Commission and the need for them to have a heightened interest and challenge them to bring these samples. COMMISSIONER SMITH: And to understand its value and how it's to be used and why we need it. CHAIRPERSON ABRAHAMSON: I think that's a very good idea. COMMISSIONER REINSTEIN: It wouldn't take more than an hour.
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