DECATUR -   The DNA Database at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) crime lab or CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) has reached over 2000 hits to unsolved cases. The total number of hits is now 2003.

It took 10 years for the DNA database to reach 1000 hits. That occurred in August of 2008.  It only took two more years to reach the 2000 hit number.
GBI Director Vernon Keenan stated, “The rapid increase in hits proves the value of DNA to law enforcement in solving violent crimes that otherwise may have gone unsolved.  As the size of the DNA database increases, we expect and hope that this trend will continue.”

The GBI began DNA testing in 1991and implemented CODIS in 1998.  At that time under state law, only those convicted and incarcerated for sex offenses were included in the database. For the next two years, the database solved 13 rapes and other sexual crimes by linking evidence to an incarcerated sex offender.  The current success of the program stemmed from the expansion of the offender law by the Georgia legislature in 2000 to include all incarcerated convicted felons. In the first year after expansion over 70 cases were solved. Since 2000, the majority of DNA hits have been for burglary (826) and rape (735) cases while the primary crimes these offenders were incarcerated for are drug, burglary or robbery related. 

In 2007, the legislature expanded the DNA database statute to include certain felony probationers.  There have been 136 DNA hits to probationers that include 56 rapes, 64 burglaries, 9 robberies, 5 auto thefts and 2 murders.

Currently, the GBI DNA database contains 214,375 profiles. Of that total, 204,605 are offender/probationer profiles and 9,759 are forensic or evidence samples. 

FBI’s National DNA Index System

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Contact Information:

John Bankhead - 404-270-8330