DNAtools : Tools for empirical testing of DNA match probabilities

DNA evidence is the pre-eminent tool in the modern forensic scientists toolbox. It is widely accepted by the public, scientific and legal communities and it has been instrumental in determining both the innocence and guilt of individuals involved in the legal process. Despite this widespread acceptance there is unease regarding the statistical measures used to evaluate DNA evidence amongst some of members of all these communities. In particular, some people regard the random match probabilities associated with DNA evidence as just too small or basically unsupportable. In this article we discuss what it means for a pair of DNA profiles to match or partially match, and we present an R package that allows a rational examination of the statistical properties of a DNA database.