PUBLICATION: The Edmonton Sun
DATE:
2003.10.17
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
News
PAGE:
7
BYLINE:
DOUG BEAZLEY, EDMONTON SUN
COLUMN:
Inside Story
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PUT
A DOLLAR VALUE ON STOPPING A RAPIST
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Who
cares to put a price on Paul Bernardo's head? What would it have been worth to
us to thwart his terrible career of rape and murder before it really got
started?
In
the late 1980s, a vicious serial rapist was stalking the streets of Scarborough,
Ont. Police were sitting on a stack of evidence, including solid DNA samples
from semen swabs taken from the Scarborough Rapist's victims.
An
anonymous tipster fingered Bernardo as the rapist. Police interviewed Bernardo,
who bore an astonishing resemblance to a composite sketch based on a victim's
description of her attacker.
He
gave every appearance of co-operating with police; he even volunteered hair and
fluid samples for DNA comparison.
But
it was another 26 months before swamped forensic technicians got around to
typing Bernardo's samples and identifying him as the rapist.
In
the meantime, Bernardo's tastes had shifted to murder. The rest you know.
The
RCMP are in the midst of a much-hyped "reorganization" of forensic
services, expected to lead to the shutdown of DNA services at their Edmonton
lab.
The
Mounties insist this "consolidation" will shorten average waiting
times for DNA tests in both urgent and non-urgent cases. Few in the forensic
field appear to be convinced.
"They're
only making matters worse," said former RCMP forensics expert Dave Hepworth.
"They're throwing a ton of resources into administration, but they're
asking 10 people to do the same work as 20 did before. How is this supposed to
speed things up?"
There's
vast room for improvement: internal RCMP statistics obtained by the press show
that in the first eight months of 2003, only about a quarter of
"urgent" forensic DNA inquiries were completed within the Mounties'
own benchmark deadline of 15 days.
Urgent
cases cover the worst of the worst: serial murders, violent sexual assaults and
terrorism.
The
average current completion time for an urgent DNA test is 55 days - plenty of
time for a serial killer or rapist to carve a few more notches.
The
Mounties claim their controversial plan to consolidate DNA services in Ottawa
will cut the backlog and speed up service.
Hepworth
believes it will rob regional police services of on-the-spot expertise they need
to get the samples that will win convictions.
"A
lot of the work is sample collection. We used to be brought in to sweep things
like automobile undercarriages, refrigerators," he said. "Are they
supposed to mail that stuff to Ottawa now?"
The
problem is money (the problem is always money). The RCMP have been routinely
starved of public resources, and now have to make their DNA service do more with
less.
But
what price are we really paying? Ray Wickenheiser was 16 years with the RCMP
before joining a DNA lab in the U.S. He's written a paper to be published in the
Journal of Biosciences and Law which compares the cost of sexual assaults to DNA
testing.
"The
best analysis in the U.S. estimates that each sexual assault case costs the
victim an average of $87,000 through things like lost time at work and medical
costs," he said.
"That's
not including the cost to the justice system should someone actually be charged.
"About
34% of sexual assaults in the States are attributed to unknown assailants.
Usually, DNA testing is our best bet for identifying these people.
"The
average sex offender commits eight sexual assaults before he's caught. If he's
caught after the first sexual assault, another seven sexual assaults might never
happen as a result.
"Break
it down, and you could save the nation $12 billion a year just by doing DNA
testing in every applicable sexual assault case. And that's just the fiscal
argument."
DNA
testing is the most powerful forensic tool to come along since the invention of
fingerprinting.
The
Mounties' massive backlog shows how the technology has been made a victim of its
own success.
How
many more rapes and murders might take place because of delays in testing? We
may never know.
One
thing we do know: money can fix this.
Hepworth estimates another $5 million a year could beat
the backlog down - chicken feed compared to the $1 billion our federal
government has squandered on a gun registry which has yet to save a single life.
What
a warped sense of priorities. What a bloody waste.