Using DNA and Other Resources To Identify Missing Persons
Highlights
The Unidentified Dead"In a typical year medical examiner or coroner offices reported that they handled about 4,400 unidentified human decedents of which about 1,000 remained unidentified after one year."
—Medical Examiners and Coroners' Offices, 2004 (Bureau of Justice Statistics)
DNA Projects Target Missing Persons
Reprinted from The CJIS Link (Vol. 9, No. 3, October 2006), the newsletter of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division.
Families of missing persons who are presumed dead face tremendous emotional turmoil when they are unable to learn about the fates of their loved ones. Despite tremendous scientific advancements, DNA technology is not routinely used in missing persons cases. According to statistics maintained by the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC), there are nearly 5,000 reported unidentified persons in the United States. (From Using DNA to Identify Missing Persons, a section of Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology).
Read DNA Projects Target Missing Persons for an overview of work being done under the President's DNA Initiative.
The President's Initiative will help ensure that DNA forensic technology is used to its full potential to identify missing persons by providing:
