A "hit" occurs when a DNA profile developed from any biological fluid, tissue or hair recovered from a crime scene is matched to one of the samples from the approximately 277,000 offender profiles in the Virginia DNA Databank. Virginia spent eight years building its Databank to achieve the first thousand "hits." The second thousand were achieved within the next 18 months, and the number of "hits" has now doubled in a little over two and a half years to 4,000.
"I congratulate the Virginia Department of Forensic Science for reaching the 4,000th hit," said Kaine. "This benchmark reflects rapidly growing input into the Databank, and increasing reliance on this powerful criminal justice tool by hundreds of law enforcement agencies and prosecutors in Virginia who investigate and solve criminal cases. Virginia's DNA Databank also has helped law enforcement agencies in 31 states identify possible perpetrators in almost 400 criminal cases."
In 1989, DFS became the first state laboratory in the country to offer DNA analyses to law enforcement. The same year, the Virginia General Assembly passed the nation's first DNA databank law, requiring all convicted sex offenders to provide a DNA sample. In 1990, the law was expanded to include all convicted felons and, in January 2003, the law was further expanded to include individuals arrested for a violent felony after a finding of probable cause by a magistrate.
"Our DNA Databank program in Virginia has served as the model and impetus for almost every other state in the U.S.," said Peter Marone, director of the Virginia Department of Forensic Science. "The data we have collected over the years, and the results we have achieved, have demonstrated to other states and the federal government how revolutionary an investigative tool DNA databases can be to the criminal justice system. Not only have they served to identify the perpetrators of crime, but to exonerate the innocent as well."
Approximately 10 percent of the investigations assisted or solved by these "hits" were homicides, 17 percent were sex offenses, and 10 percent were other violent crimes. Approximately 55 percent involved property crimes.
