Abstract
The aim of this study was to make a head start with unveiling transnational spatial patterns in offending. To that end, data are used from DNA profile exchange between The Netherlands and 18 other EU member states that have implemented EU legislation on forensic cooperation. Information was collected on all DNA stains entered into the database, including the region in The Netherlands where the stain was secured, the type of crime and how many matching DNA profiles had been identified in each of the other 18 countries. The results suggest that currently the profiles of offenders who are active in other Prüm countries make up for about 4 per cent of all DNA stain profiles in the Dutch DNA database. The highest share of cross-border matches is found in the southeastern part of The Netherlands, where The Netherlands borders one of the most densely populated regions of Germany.
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Notes
In this article, reliability is assessed according to common criteria in social science research, where error margins of up to 5 per cent are generally deemed acceptable. Obviously, legal procedures require much smaller error margins.
Note that ‘enough evidence’ in this context applies to criminological research, where some amount of measurement error (much larger than the potential error of false positives or false negatives in DNA profile matches) is accepted as a necessary fact of life. For obvious reasons, legal procedures require much smaller error margins and additional sources of evidence.
Again, we emphasize that strictly speaking it merely says that probably the same person was the source of both stains, and that finding the stain probably means the person was involved in the crime as an offender.
The Netherlands started to exchange DNA profiles with Malta on 30 June 2014 and with Belgium on 29 July 2014, after the analyses for this article had already been completed.
Note that this result is not formulated simply in terms of a ‘percentage of crimes that match’ because a single crime scene may contain DNA stains of multiple offenders (some of which may match with stains from one or more other countries).
The large majority (85.4 per cent) of the stains with a Prüm match did match with only one country, another 12.2 per cent matched with two countries, the remaining 2.4 per cent matched with 3–5 countries.
In the case of suspicion, this assumes the suspicion was correct.
France bordered Prüm countries Spain, Germany and Luxembourg and non-Prüm countries Belgium, Switzerland and Italy (Belgium became a Prüm country only after the analyses were completed).
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Acknowledgements
The reported research was part of the project Prüm Implementation, Evaluation and Strengthening of Forensic DNA Data Exchange (PIES) that was supported by the Program Prevention of and Fight against Crime (ISEC) of the Department of Home Affairs of the European Commission (project number HOME/2011/ISEC/AG/PRUM/4000002150, grant agreement number: 30-CE-0498536/00-03). The sole responsibility for the findings reported and opinions expressed in this article lies with the authors. The Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. The authors thank the guest editors and reviewers for helpful comments on a previous draft of the text.
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Bernasco, W., Lammers, M. & van der Beek, K. Cross-border crime patterns unveiled by exchange of DNA profiles in the European Union. Secur J 29, 640–660 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/sj.2015.27
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/sj.2015.27