2015/03/02

Pacific Standard February 27, 2015: Will 'DNA Phenotyping' Lead to Racial Profiling by Police?

Bioethicists, geneticists, attorneys, and cops weigh the pros and cons of a radical new science.

An unknown serial killer wreaking havoc in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the summer of 2002 led local police and the FBI to employ a novel and controversial approach.

They sent a sample of DNA that had been found at the scene of one of the crimes to a be analyzed using a new test designed by a molecular biologist. Tony Frudakis promised that, with his “DNAWitness” test, he could identify the suspect’s race within a small margin of error. Following a witness description, the cops had previously been searching for a white male. But Frudakis identified the suspect as being black. Because of those results, the investigation switched course, and eventually produced the killer.

Even though the science led to an arrest, one of the prosecutors in Baton Rouge, Tony Clayton, expressed his wariness about its emphasis on race and ethnicity; he said he didn’t trust anything that implies all people don’t “bleed the same blood.” Clayton told a Wired reporter in 2007: “If I could push a button and make this technology disappear, I would.” The Wired piece concluded that, despite the technology’s accuracy, “police won’t touch it” for just that reason, and that Frudakis’ company would likely go out of business. (It did.) more