Inclusiveness, Effectiveness and Intrusiveness: Issues in the Developing Uses of DNA Profiling in Support of Criminal Investigations

The rapid implementation and continuing expansion of forensic DNA databases around the world has been supported by claims about their effectiveness in criminal investigations and challenged by assertions of the resulting intrusiveness into individual privacy. These two competing perspectives provide the basis for ongoing considerations about the categories of persons who should be subject to non-consensual DNA sampling and profile retention as well as the uses to which such profiles should be put. This paper uses the example of the current arrangements for forensic DNA databasing in England and Wales to discuss the ways in which the legislative and operational basis for police DNA databasing is reliant upon continuous deliberations over these and other matters by a range of key stakeholders. We also assess the effects of the recent innovative use of DNA databasing for "familial searching" in this jurisdiction in order to show how agreed understandings about the appropriate uses of DNA can become unsettled and reformulated even where their investigative effectiveness is uncontested. We conclude by making some observations about the future of what is recognized to be the largest forensic DNA database in the world.     

War & Society,Centeno, Miguel A. and Elaine Enriquez. (Cambridge,UK: Polity Press, 2016).

A bumper sticker on many cars in college and university parking lots proclaims: “WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER.” Most American students and faculty spend their entire time at university without thinking about war, except that they want to avoid it at all cost. Miguel Centeno, the Musgrave Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University, and Elaine Enriquez, a research fellow also at Princeton, argue that war has been a normal part of human existence since time immemorial and that it deserves to be studied as a sociopolitical phenomenon in its own right. The authors employ a longue durée comparative approach to demonstrate how war has been responsible for some of humankind’s fundamental institutions and practices, and thus must not be condemned as immoral, irrational, stupid, or evil. War has a history of its own that deserves serious study.     

J.M.还是J.D.?——中、日、美复合型法律人才培养制度比较

传统上,中、日两国法学教育属于综合法律素质养成型教育类型,并不与法律职业直接相联系。但自上个世纪九十年代以来,两国出现了借鉴美国法学院制度,探索建立法律实务教育模式的新动向。论文对法律硕士专业学位(J.M.)教育、日本的法科大学院(J.D.)、以及美国的法学院制度(J.D.)进行了比较观察。对中日两国新型法学教育制度形成与效果的关系作了分析,对法学院制度形成的路径、方式和评价机制问题作了探讨。作者认为,制度形成的关键不在于形而上的可行性讨论,根本性问题是对制度要素的观察、分析以及摄入,构成要素的摄取决定了制度的效果和命运。     

Spanish population data on the loci D13S317, D7S820, and D16S539 generated using silver staining (SilverSTR III Multiplex).

A set of 212 samples from unrelated Spanish Caucasians living in Andalucia (southern Spain) were analyzed with a new commercially-available kit for multiplex amplification of 3 STR loci (D13S137, D7S820, and D16S539), manual denaturing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and silver staining. These three loci are of special interest for the forensic community since they are a part of the 13 CODIS-core STR loci. The results show that the loci D13S317 and D16S539 meet Hardy-Weinberg expectations (HWE), but the locus D7S820 did not meet HWE (p = 0.003). However, there was no detectable departures from independence (i.e., linkage disequilibrium) between any pair-wise combination of loci. The D7S820 data were further investigated. The excess homozygosity was due to an excess of D7S820 10, 10 homozygotes. To determine if the allele frequency data are meaningful and can be applied to forensic identity cases, the Spanish D7S820 allele frequency data were compared with four other Caucasian sample populations. The D7S820 allele frequencies were statistically similar; thus, the results support that the allele frequency data can be used reliably for estimating DNA profile frequencies.