Do Police Use Dna To Find Residential Home Burglaries

For what types of crimes do police use fingerprints?

Matt Viscasillas’s answer is good, however beyond “stolen property to homicide,” documents involved in crimes such as fraud could also yield fingerprints. I have developed such prints on paper through use of ninhydrin fuming and super glue, that may not have been available through powders.

Are fingerprints usually taken in case of household burglary?

Depending on the jurisdiction and the availability of personnel to do the collection and powdering. In my county, our crime lab will respond to any crime scene if requested by the local police agency. In fact, many people don’t know that they can request their agency to call the crime laboratory.Whether the Crime Scene Unit collects items for fingerprint work, or powders on scene is at their discretion based on the circumstances and potential evidence. They will typically, as Tommy H stated, at least do doorknobs, points of entry and exit, and other items the victim claims were disrupted.Our crime scene unit will respond to all crime types even down to Damage to Property and process them much the same way.

Do police departments close cases if no one is arrested? Or do they label them suspended when they are done with the case?

Whether a case is considered "closed" or "suspended" or "active" is entirely dependent on the individual department's policy.My department, for instance, doesn't "close" a case unless there is a suspect identified and the case is forwarded for prosecution. If the subject is convicted or the prosecutor decides to drop the case as part of a plea bargain, the case file will be closed. If the prosecutor simply chooses not to prosecute, or if they return the case file with questions or concerns about the quality of the evidence, the case will remain open.A neighboring department, however, will "close" a case at the drop of a hat. In cases of common theft where property is simply picked up and stolen and no information is available about the offender, they will "administratively close" the case the very next day. It can be reopened if other information becomes available. The reporting officer can take the case on his/her own for follow-up (not forwarding it to detectives) if s/he so chooses, but the case is still considered closed unless an offender is identified.A "suspended" or "cold" case may be reviewed occasionally or never, depending on the department's policies and detectives' case loads.The case may stay open after the statute of limitations has expired. My agency had a fingerprint "hit" about fifteen years after a burglary -- a former resident of the area was arrested for a DUI in Texas and his fingerprints matched the ones submitted in the old burglary case. We noted his identification as the suspect in the case and then closed the file.In short, the specific answer is an administrative one which varies by department.

How hard will the police search for a burglary suspect?

This is going to depend on a number of things, but basically comes down to whether there is any evidence or not. With most burglaries the police will look for forensics (DNA, fingerprints), CCTV, witnesses, anything stolen being sold or seen. If they have some or all of these things there is a good chance that a suspect will be identified and charged. With none of these they will almost certainly file the case unsolved on the same day.Sometimes in the UK people will admit to previous offences when they’re caught as these can be included in their charge without dramitaclly increasing their sentence, and thus meaning they can’t be re-sentanced for another offence at a later date, and so sometimes unsolved burglaries are cleared up much later.Fingerprints can be found that don’t identify anyone, if they have no criminal record. This is pretty rare as people don’t often start their criminal career with burglaries, or spend a lifetime of crime without being caught, but it can happen. I had a guy who was arrested for a domestic matter and his fingerprints taken and linked to a burglary that happened 10 years previously.If there are leads police will try and solve a burglary, but alas, many, if not most, go unsolved.I’ve been burgled twice and no one was caught for either.

How can the police charge me for burglary of a habitation if I have permission to be there?

In CA anyway, a burglary (PC 459) occurs when someone enters a building with the intent to commit any felony, or any petty or grand larceny.This means that even if you have permission to be there, if you had intent to commit any felony, or intent to steal anything when you entered the building (house or apartment) you would be guilty of burglary. You don’t actually have to steal anything, if intent can be shown.This is why people who enter homes to say kill someone, but discover the potential victim isn’t home, are charged with “burglary” even though they never stole anything and even had a key to the residence. It’s all about the “elements of the crime” (aka “corpus delicti”).In CA, we used to charge people who shoplifted items from stores (Walmart etc) with burglary if we could show that when they entered the store, it was for the purposes of stealing something. If we couldn’t show intent prior to entering, they were charged with either petty or grand theft. Prop 47 added a new law “shoplifting” (PC 459.5), and did away with our ability to charge “burglary” in these cases however. That’s a story for another day I suppose.