Judically Sanctioned DNA Sampling

For sex crimes, kidnapping and murder, a DNA sample is required upon conviction although not always demanded.  For crimes, such as criminal mischief, robbery and assault, the decision is left to the discretion of the judge.

The Star analysis of the Canadian Police Information Centre data revealed that “32.5 per cent of those required to provide DNA samples were non-white, even though non-whites make up only 16.7 per cent of those with criminal records.”

When examining the data between paired samples, the analysis found that ”comparing the same kinds of criminal records still shows a difference between whites and non-whites. For example, of people who have a criminal record for violence, 10.5 per cent of non-whites had DNA taken versus 6.1 per cent of whites.”

The literature on racism, which has been actively discussed throughout this site and explained in this post, can account for this discrepancy accordingly.  When left at the hands of the judges, a bias towards non-whites would be extremely difficult to observe based on individual cases as ordering a DNA sample can be strongly justified in any instance for the sake of public safety.

Thus, although judges presumably hold strong egalitarian values and notions of justice and equality, they may without their knowledge harbour racist or (negative) stereotypical thoughts towards non-whites which would result in prejudiced decision making and conduct in seemingly ambiguous situations. 

Irrespective of the precise rationale underpinning these differences, this data provides more than anecdotal evidence that differential treatment does exist within Canada’s justice system.