There can be some concerns about how DNA is used and whether it's worth expanding and and how valuable it is as a tool and in Illinois it's not only a valuable tool for law enforcement for prosecutors, but it's also exonerating and every state faces those challenges about people who are wrongfully accused or wrongfully convicted and so I think it's important to start the conversation about the role of DNA in criminal justice by hitting it head on and by getting people together including members of your general assembly, because they're going to be the ones that take the vote on whether the ideas you have become law in your state. So get their support early and you're going to get their support by speaking candidly about how important this issue is to victims, to investigators, and to prosecutors. Legislators are facing incredibly tough decisions every single day. When it comes to funding programs because everyone who comes to the governor's office or to the legislature has very compelling reasons for why their program is important to the public and unfortunately we're not able to fund all of those programs to the level that we would like, so we have to make incredibly difficult decisions about funding law enforcement officers on the street to make sure they have the resources they need to keep the public safe and also funding education because we know that education is a primary way of keeping kids out of the criminal justice system in the future. Legislators are very very busy and don't have a tremendous amount of time, so go in well prepared with an explanation of what you're there for, what the problem is, and where you think the solutions are. A legislator for the last few years has been attempting to pass legislation which would require the test DNA testing of all felony arrestees. Now the bill that has been introduced it would add 130 000 new samples on top of the of the felony arrestees to the 44 000 average felony convicts. This is unrealistic this if it was to become law would be the ultimate in unfunded mandates and it would create backlogs of epic proportions.
