Senate committees backs expansion of DNA testing

PHOENIX The Senate Appropriations Committee has reversed itself and endorsed a bill to require DNA testing of all people arrested. That's a proposed expansion of a crime-fighting tool.

The 8-to-2 approval came one day after the same committee narrowly rejected the bill (SB1267) on a tie vote.

State law now requires collection of DNA samples from all people convicted of felonies, a mandate implemented in 2004 under a phase-in approved two years earlier by the Legislature and then-Governor Jane Hull.

Arizona started its DNA sampling requirement with sex offenders in 1993 and added burglars and murderers in 2000.

A legislative briefing memo says the bill would result in an additional 75-thousand people being tested each year at a cost of three-point-seven-five (m) million dollars.

That's 50 dollars per sample for collection, profiling and data entry.

The state Department of Public Safety has said it would seek up to ten (m) million dollars to remodel and replace an evidence warehouse that would be used to expand the current DNA facility.