Objective
We evaluated whether Department of Defense (DoD) and U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) authorities collected Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) samples from service members convicted of certain offenses and submitted them to the United States Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory (USACIL) for analysis and subsequent inclusion in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) as federal law and DoD Instruction (DoDI) mandate.
Findings
DoD and USCG authorities did not submit 282 of the 3,536 required DNA samples to USACIL for inclusion in CODIS during our evaluation sample period of June 1, 2010, through October 31, 2012. The evaluated agencies had an overall 92 percent compliance rate.
Recommendations
We recommend the Secretaries of the Military Departments and Commandant of the Coast Guard take prompt action to submit the missing 282 DNA samples required to be in CODIS.
We recommend the Secretaries of the Military Departments and Commandant of the Coast Guard take prompt action to ensure DNA sample collections for future arrestees and convicted offenders conform to DoDI 5505.14.
Management Comments
Overall, the Secretaries of the Military Departments and the Commandant of the Coast Guard concurred with our report and recommendations. They agreed with our recommendations to promptly submit any missing DNA samples to CODIS but expressed concern regarding their jurisdictional and legal authority to collect samples from individuals no longer subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). We recognize there may be hindrances in attempting to collect the missing samples. However, we believe the Services should pursue all possible avenues in their efforts to collect and submit the required samples to CODIS.
This report is a result of Project No. 2012C018.