Senator Charles J. Fuschillo, Jr. has announced that Governor Pataki signed into law legislation that will require all violent felons and a number of non-violent felony offenders to submit DNA samples upon conviction. Fuschillo hailed this new law stating, "the measure would drive crime rates even lower by helping police collar more dangerous criminals."

The measure dramatically expands the state's DNA databank to include more crimes to include all violent felonies, and allows additional types of DNA samples to be collected from criminals.

"This landmark expansion of New York's DNA Databank will help solve more crimes, convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent," said Fuschillo. "The potential for DNA technology to solve crimes is tremendous, but even more important, it will make our criminal justice system more accurate and, ultimately, more just."

Established in 1994, New York State's DNA Identification Index currently requires offenders convicted of 21 specific offenses to submit DNA samples, accounting of only 8 percent of annual felony convictions. The expanded list of offenses will cover 65 percent of those convictions and add 30,000 new DNA samples to the Databank each year.

Previously, only a small fraction of offenders--accounting for only about 11 percent of annual felony convictions--were included in the state's DNA databank. The new law expands the types of offenders in the databank to include all violent felon, Class A drug offenders and other serious crimes such as third-degree burglary and grand larceny. The bill also expands the type of samples used for the database to also include hair and saliva, and increases the penalties for abuse of DNA information to a Class E felony.

"This law will make our state's DNA Databank an invaluable resource for law enforcement officers investigating crimes throughout the state. The law also strictly protects the privacy of individual samples by making it a felony to tamper with or misuse DNA data," stated Fuschillo.