Coming Soon to a Police Station Near You: The DNA ‘Magic Box’

When the man was pulled over, the police found an outstanding warrant for retail theft. He was arrested and asked if he would consent to provide a DNA sample.

To collect DNA, police in Pennsylvania must obtain consent from people under arrest. Ninety percent of those asked say yes, said Fred Harran, director of public safety for the Bensalem police; it was Mr. Harran who encouraged the department to take the lead in DNA policing. Asked why so many people would consent to give DNA, he said: “I have no idea. But criminals do stupid things.”

Of the dozens of cheek swabs that officers in Bucks County collect each week, three to five are selected for Rapid DNA processing. The driver’s sample was a good candidate because a string of vehicle break-ins and car thefts had been reported near his home. His police file suggested possible involvement, Detective Vandegrift said: “If he hits to a burglary, we’ll charge him and lock him up.”

A DNA sample is most useful if an agency has a large database for comparison. Even before the “magic box” arrived in Bensalem, Bucks County had built up one of the biggest local DNA databases in the country. It contains around 12,000 individual profiles, as well as 13,000 still-unidentified profiles extracted from crime scenes.

Few law-enforcement agencies have such a database, but a new incentive to invest in Rapid DNA is emerging. The F.B.I. is setting up the infrastructure to enable select police booking stations, initially in five states — Arizona, California, Florida, Louisiana and Texas — to upload genetic profiles extracted from cheek swabs directly to the national DNA database.

A suspect’s DNA then could be compared quickly against evidence from hundreds of thousands of unsolved crimes across the country. In under two hours, a person in custody for stealing a laptop could be identified as a long-sought serial killer.

Can a machine police itself?

Detective Vandegrift took the cartridge containing the cotton swab and inserted it into the console of the Rapid DNA machine. Numbers began ticking down on the screen, signaling that a series of chemicals was transforming the driver’s cheek cells to snippets of genetic code.

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