Continued funding needed for DNA lab – mySanAntonio.com

Express-News Editorial Board

Photo: Jaime Dunaway /Associated Press

Continued funding needed for DNA lab

Reduced federal funding for the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification comes with serious national implications especially for smaller law enforcement agencies.

The National Institute of Justice has diverted grant funding that used to go to labs analyzing DNA to identify missing people and the unidentified dead.

The money was reallocated to state and local programs that audit and track backlogged rape kits, the Associated Press reported. The agency is also is offering new grants for medical examiners and coroners offices to help them meet accreditation standards and recruit forensic pathologists.

Those are are worthwhile projects that merit funding. However, taking money from a program that was doing commendable work is not the solution.

The UNT center is the countrys largest lab specializing in analyzing DNA samples to try to identify human remains. Over the past nine years, the National Institute of Justice has awarded UNT $13 million.

Without federal funding the Texas-based center will no longer be able to process cases from agencies outside of Texas. Last year the center accepted 1,200 cases from across the country, which accounted for almost 80 percent of its caseload, according to the Associated Press.

Many of the jurisdictions seeking the UNT services do not have the tools to conduct their own analyses and cannot afford to pay the $2,000 to $3,000 fees generally associated with this type of DNA testing.

There are more than 100,000 missing persons and 40,000 set of unidentified remains across the country. Cutting federal funding for a successful program is bad public policy.

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Continued funding needed for DNA lab - mySanAntonio.com