You lose a lot of your rights once you become a convicted criminal (particularly a felon). It is no surprise that this would be one of them. Sometimes I think they should put more effort into publicizing all the stuff you have to give up if convicted of a crime. It might actual serve as a deterrent. Clearly the threat of being put in jail is not working as a deterrent.

The article mentions "arrested for a felony" not "convicted". Obviously these are very different things, and it shouldn't be too hard to see why some people have a problem with people found innocent still having their privacy invaded, not to mention the incentives it gives authorities to arrest more people. It almost encourages 'fishing' by arresting people with little to no evidence (or on unrelated charges) to get the DNA sample, and then releasing them without pressing charges. Groups that already feel targetted by the police might be wary of policies which give incentives for making questionable or spurious felony arrests in order to get data for investigations into future or previous crimes.

Ah yes. It does say arrested. My bad. Still doesn't really concern me. Groups that already feel targeted by police also tend to over-exaggerate the possibility that maybe at some point in the future someone may misuse it.

From California Prop 69 in 2004 [1]:

Upon Enactment of Measure

• Adults and juveniles convicted of any felony offense.

• Adults and juveniles convicted of any sex offense or arson offense, or an attempt to commit any such offense (not just felonies).

• Adults arrested for or charged with felony sex offenses, murder or voluntary manslaughter (or the attempt to commit such offenses).

Additionally, Starting in 2009

•Adults arrested for or charged with any felony offense.

So we have 7-8 years of them getting DNA from people arrested for felony sex offenses, murder or voluntary manslaughter and 3-4 years of them getting DNA from people arrested for any felony. That should be enough data to draw some conclusions. Anybody have any studies to show the uptick in spurious felony arrests in California since Prop 69 passed in 2004? I would also expect to see a drastic shift from that small subset of offenses after 2009 when any felony arrest qualified since it would be a lot less risky to falsely arrest people for felonies far less important than sex crimes and murder (like tampering with a mail box or something stupid like that).

[1] http://www.lao.ca.gov/ballot/2004/69_11_2004.htm

In California they collect DNA at arrest, not conviction. Your DNA can be collected and stored in CODIS without your ever having been convicted of a crime.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/03/eff-again-reminds-cour...

http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/296.1.html

I read somewhere that you can petition to have it removed once charges are dropped. Not ideal since that sounds like a hassle. But it is an option nonetheless.

If going to jail where you can get raped, beaten and killed does not work as a deterrent why would something less severe work as a deterrent?

Sometimes I think trying to solve the root cause of crime would be more effective than increasing the punishments.

Good point. Although not everyone ends up in the rapin', beatin' and killin' jails.

Twin adoption studies show that many influences on criminality are set at conception. Two of the biggies are intellect (IQ) and impulsivity/distractibility (ADHD).

Nonsense. Those "checks and balances" allow the people (states) to amend the constitution and override the courts.

Good luck with that.

Because no state has had a consitutional ammendment recently?