Overview
The issue of lawfully owed DNA (LODNA) samples not being collected, analyzed, and entered into CODIS leads to preventable victimization and costs people’s lives. A “lawfully owed sample” is a DNA sample from a qualifying offender that was never collected or submitted to a crime laboratory for testing or uploaded into CODIS. These are samples that should be taken under state laws that require DNA collection from people convicted of certain crimes—and, in many states, from individuals arrested for specific offenses but for various reasons were not.
However, thousands of perpetrators nationwide have not had their DNA collected due to administrative gaps, inconsistent collection practices, or failures to transfer samples to state DNA databases. As a result, forensic laboratories and law enforcement agencies miss opportunities to link individuals to unsolved crimes or serial offenders, thereby leaving individuals in the community to re-offend.
Addressing backlogs of lawfully owed DNA samples is widely viewed as a cost-effective strategy to strengthen public safety, improve the completeness of state and national DNA databases, and enhance the effectiveness of forensic investigations. And while states have increasingly focused on identifying and collecting these owed samples through audits, interagency coordination, and targeted collection initiatives, there is still much work to be done to eliminate the backlog of LODNA samples and to fix the systemic problems that create those backlogs in the future.
