The Secrets Behind the Investigations

            Author’s Note: This piece of writing is to explain what DNA is and how people use it in investigations to help determine if a suspect is guilty or innocent.

          Imagine yourself arriving at a crime scene on the first day of the job. You find a wine glass and you think to yourself how do I get this DNA off and what exactly is it? Your wiping the fingerprint dust over it and you blow. You finally got your first real fingerprint. What exactly do you do with it again? Your thinking I surely don't want to ask somebody on the first day that would be embarrassing. Your memory totally goes blank and you think back and your trying to think what DNA really is. DNA shows your character; we use it in criminal investigations, helping to solve the mystery to find who’s guilty or innocent.

            First off, DNA shows character, it makes you who you really are. “DNA is a powerful tool because each person's DNA is different from every other individual's, except for identical twins” (DNA.gov) (Advancing Criminal Justice Through DNA Technology). DNA is in the nucleus, the center of a cell. It is a large molecule in the nucleus but it is too small for an eye to see. It contains part of your mom and part of your dad. It is what makes you, you (DNA.gov) (Advancing Criminal Justice Through DNA Technology).  I didn’t think that a little part in each one of your cells could tell who you really are. It tells a big part of our lives but you can’t even see it without looking underneath a microscope.

            Next, how do they really find out our DNA? Professionals collect the DNA from an evidence sample from an unknown person and, usually at a later time, they process both samples and compare the two DNA from the suspect and the unknown subjects to see if they will match. If both of the samples match, then we know whose DNA they have found. If they don’t match, then investigators have to do a little more digging at the crime scene. To me I really didn’t make sense of how they did this during the television show because they do it like it’s nothing because they see it every day. This really is a big process and they wouldn’t want to screw up. That would affect everything at the end.

            Although, they have a good process for direct DNA, they figured a clever way to find DNA using your fingerprints. “The notion of using DNA fingerprints as a sort of genetic bar code to identify individuals” (Practical Applications of DNA fingerprinting). When you’re at the store they scan your items to get the price or their “DNA” just like us. They take our fingerprints which are like a barcode of our DNA. Each of the rings on your fingers has a certain reason. It’s like a bar code so when they scan it, it shows your whole profile and they have your DNA.  “A person inherits his or her DNA from his or her parents, DNA patterns can be used to establish paternity and maternity, the patterns are so specific that a parental DNA pattern can be reconstructed even if only the children's DNA patterns are known (the more children the easier)” (Practical Applications of DNA fingerprinting).

            Another really important thing in an investigation, is how DNA helps determine whether  a suspect is guilty or innocent. They really do have a clever way of finding who was at the crime scene. “DNA is from blood, hair, skin cells, or other genetic evidence left at the scene” (Friedland). If you drop one little part of your body your cells are on any evidence, they are small too see but it plays a big role in the investigation. If your DNA is found in a crime scene then they know that you were there. They can use that against or for you depending on what all the other evidence is. Detectives just have an instinct when they find your DNA they could take it two ways. You’re guilty or innocent they just have to be the ones to figure that out. “DNA embraces the concepts of free will and moral blameworthiness” (Friedland).

            Now, I know what C.S.I investigators and Criminal Minds shows find: peoples’ DNA and how they get it from the crime scenes and use it in their investigations. Criminal investigators use DNA in their everyday investigations, it helps them really find out whose guilty or innocent, it shows who you really are.

               

Bibliography

Advancing Criminal Justice Through DNA Technology. 8 May 2011. 18 April 2012 <http://www.dna.gov/audiences/investigators/know/whatisdna>.

Deters, Attorney Joesph T. Where does DNA come from. October 2010. 18 April 2012 <http://cms.hcpros.org/node/821>.

Friedland, Steven I. "DNA Revolution." A vision of the Future (1997).

Practical Applications of DNA fingerprinting. 19 April 2012 <http://protist.biology.washington.edu/fingerprint/apps.html>.

What is DNA? 16 April 2011. 18 April 2012 <http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/basics/dna>.