Samenvatting

Current statistics are unclear about the contribution of DNA as a crime-fighting tool. To obtain an objective view on the effectiveness to use DNA as intelligence information we analyzed all forensic reports from serious (N=116) and high volume crime cases (N=2791) over the year 2011 at one police region in the Netherlands. DNA-profile results show that 38 percent of the serious crime traces (N=384) and 17 percent of the high volume crime traces (N=386) did not result in a DNA-profile. Turnaround times of these DNA-traces from crime scene to DNA-report were relatively long; for serious crimes 66 days and for high volume crimes 44 days. Based on these results a suspect was truly identified through a match with the Offender DNA-database of the Netherlands in 3 percent of the serious crime cases and in 1 percent of the high volume crime cases. Insight in DNA-results and adjustments in the analysis process could benefit the use of DNA as a crime-fighting tool.