The ongoing debate on the use of DNA profiles to identify perpetrators in criminal investigations or fathers in paternity disputes has too often been conducted with no regard to sound statistical, genetic or legal reasoning. The contributors to this text have considerable experience in forensic science, statistical genetics or jurimetrics, and many of them have had to explain the scientific issues involved in using DNA profiles to judges and juries. Although the authors hold differing views on some of the issues, they have all produced accounts which pay due attention to the issues of independence of components of the profiles and of population substructures.