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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Crooks can be slobs. Kansas City police Officer Kevin Hulen knows this.

Burglars get beer and food out of refrigerators, quaff and chomp while they work, and leave cans, bottles or food remnants. Car thieves toss beer cans on floorboards. Intruders drop cigarette butts and cut themselves on glass.

Nowadays, such carelessness just might get them caught.

Part of Hulen's job is to gather DNA evidence at the scene of property crimes. Hulen is no CSI technician. He's just a regular cop who happens to be in the vanguard of a new trend in police work: using DNA to solve routine property crimes.

Compared with conventional techniques, DNA evidence in property crimes gets twice as many suspects identified, arrested and accepted for prosecution, according to an Urban Institute study released this year. Police in Topeka, Kan.; Denver; Los Angeles; Phoenix; and Orange County, Calif., participated in the research.

But the study warns about what could happen if such testing becomes widespread: "The criminal-justice system will be deluged with cases" it is not prepared to deal with.

The FBI reports that more than 2 million burglaries occur each year, but arrests are made only about 12 percent of the time. If society wants to get serious about property crimes, it will cost.

Initial DNA testing costs only about $1,400, the study found, but on average it takes $4,502 to identify a suspect, $14,169 for each additional arrest and $6,169 more for each case prosecuted.

Urban Institute economist John Roman, one of the main authors of the study, said society would have to make choices about crimes like burglary, which spread loss and fear in neighborhoods.

"It's an offense that has real consequences, and we've tended to treat it as more of a nuisance," he said. "You're going to have all these non-violent offenders with slam-dunk cases against them."

Advocates say the higher costs must be balanced against millions of dollars in lost property and the higher insurance rates caused by petty criminals — and citizens' loss of peace of mind.

Linda Netzel, director of the Kansas City Police Crime Lab, noted that many thieves steal until they are caught.

"If we just let these crimes go on," she said, "the DNA costs will look like chump change."

The national study found that suspects identified by DNA — usually matched to felon databases — tended to be repeat offenders with twice as many prior felony arrests and convictions as those caught by other methods.

Denver reported a 26 percent drop in its burglary rate as a result. In its own study, Denver determined that the DNA work got 95 prolific burglars convicted and prevented thousands of crimes. Each dollar spent saved citizens $63 over two years in police costs and property losses.

One other thing the national study reported: Trained police officers collect DNA as well as crime-lab technicians.