MIM Notes 223   December 1, 2000

South Carolina imposes DNA database at prisoner expense

by a South Carolina Prisoner and a MIM Comrade

In June 1999 the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division 
(SLED) began a DNA database. The supply came from "sex offender" 
prisoners who were required to submit blood.

But this summer people complained that the database only had 1,829 
samples from sex offenders, and most of those were still in 
prison, so the database wasn't helping to solve any crimes. Many 
prisoners were released before having samples taken from them 
before the database got off the ground. Meanwhile, in Florida, a 
DNA database has been used in hundreds of investigations.

In response, in August Gov. Jim Hodges signed into a law a bill 
that will expand the database to cover violent offenders, juvenile 
offenders, and burglars. And, because the state legislature 
supposedly didn't budget enough for the program -- even with $4 
million in federal grants in addition to $370 thousand in state 
money -- the new law requires prisoners to pay $250 each to cover 
the cost of drawing and analyzing their own blood samples.

The bourgeois Amerikan state doesn't address the most serious 
crimes against the people -- which include foreign wars, corporate 
misdeeds, police abuses and environmental devastation. Instead it 
looks for more ways to spend millions of dollars on technological 
fixes aimed at persecuting the same oppressed nationals that have 
already had their lives and the lives of their families and 
communities uprooted by the prison system. The injustice system 
thrives on imprisonment, not crime prevention or public safety.

This database, like the "sex-offender" registries, mean that from 
now on, prisoners in the database will be considered suspects for 
all crimes, and subject to biological search even if there is no 
reason to associate them with any misdeed. This DNA database is 
part of the process of demonizing prisoners -- like the laws in 
many states banning former prisoners from ever voting.

MIM has received numerous reports from South Carolina prisoners 
who have had their meager accounts raided or frozen to cover these 
costs. When prisoners were originally sentenced the charge was not 
part of the sentence.

Once again, the bourgeois state has penalized prisoners' families 
for the prisoners' alleged crimes. Much of the prisoners' money 
comes from their families. The legality of the state forcing 
prisoners to pay for the program has been challenged and is 
pending in Federal court.

Notes: Associated Press State & Local Wire, 20 August 2000, BC 
cycle.