Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter

While DNA evidence has been used to secure criminal convictions in Jamaica, police have no powers to collect samples upon arresting suspects on the same basis as fingerprinting. This was enabled by an amendment made to the Fingerprinting Act last year.

After failing to introduce the new DNA legislation in the 2006/07 parliamentary year, Minister of National Security Dr. Peter Phillips has said that the Government will do so in the current year which expires April 2008.

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has requested greater funding for its forensic capability, complaining that its laboratory is being overworked, as have local pathologists, given the country's high murder rate.

Last year, the JCF began using newly acquired automatic fingerprinting and ballistic testing technology.

Under the Child Care and Protection Act, Family Courts can order paternity tests.

With Jamaican forensic science, namely pathology, under fire over the controversial Bob Woolmer case, its reputation could be boosted by the expansion across the Caribbean of the country's only private DNA laboratory.

Since 2005 at the University of West Indies (UWI) Mona, Caribbean Genetics, or CARIGEN, has offered DNA tests for paternity and forensics but has assisted criminal investigations here and more recently across the region.

Expertise in region

According to CARIGEN Director, Dr. Wayne McLaughlin, the only forensic laboratories within the region are government facilities here and in Trinidad and Barbados. This means that forensic and paternity evidence otherwise have to be tested elsewhere.

CARIGEN has also provided its expertise in Jamaican cases.

"The original idea of Carib Genetics is that we were to offer a service throughout the Caribbean," said Dr. McLaughlin. "We have already provided services for cases in countries, such as Anguilla and Grenada, on cases such as sexual assault, missing persons and murder."

CARIGEN, which boasts relatively advanced technology, is able to deliver more accurate testing, he added.

New services

Their laboratory uses Short Tandem Repeat (STR) testing, which tests for sex chromosomes which can deliver more accurate results, even when the quality of the DNA evidence is degraded or in sexual assault cases, contaminated by female DNA.

"In a lot of forensic cases, the DNA is exposed to all kinds of things that the environment will break down. The traditional autosomal (non-sex chromosome) are not sufficiently able to get a complete sample depending on how broken down they are," he explained.

Apart from the immediate aim of expanding its paternity and criminal DNA services across the Caribbean, CARIGEN is also looking to offer new services.

These include medical diagnostic services such as testing for human papillomavirus (HPV), which is a major cause of cervical cancer and sexually transmitted infections (STI) including HIV.

DNA samples

Dr. McLaughlin noted that the Ministry of Agriculture could take DNA samples when they tag cattle. These could be used to identity cattle in praedial larceny cases.

Dr. McLaughlin is a forensic DNA analyst and an expert forensic witness, with degrees in microbiology and biochemistry.

He will be the guest speaker at tomorrow's seminar titled 'Solving Crime using Forensic DNA Science' at the physiology lecture theatre, Department of Basic Medical Sciences, UWI, Mona.

The seminar is the third in a series being put on by the Jamaica Fulbright-Humphrey Alumni Association, supported by the U.S. Embassy.

ross.sheil@gleanerjm.com