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Judge wants *everyone* in the UK on DNA database

Fruitloop said:
Don't forget, if you're standing in a pub minding your own business and some nutcase starts on you, the cops are called etc, it's not unusual for them to arrest everybody and sort it out at the station.
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Er ... yes it is unusual. Because to do that would be to make unlawful arrests and end up paying thousands in compensation. Arrests can only be made on reasonable grounds to suspect an offence and whilst that may mean that lots of people may be arrestable, it is significantly less than the casual arrest of "everybody" you imply.

There are plenty of ways to get swept up without any suggestion of criminal activity on your part.
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Correct, entirely lawfully as arrest on "reasonable grounds to suspect" is a far lower evidential test than the "beyond reasonable doubt" needed for conviction. So lots of arrested persons are either entirely innocent or guilty but there is insufficient evidence to prove it (and hence are legally assumed to be innocent).
 
chymaera said:
According to the reference in the threadstarter 20000 crimes a year are being solved with the current DNA database of 4 million. I really cannot see what objection people have to that.
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No surprise there, then. It's not unreasonable to keep a DNA database of people who have committed crimes in the past, since it can be argued that by offending they have forfeited to a certain degree the privacy that is a reasonable expectation of the law-abiding citizen, and if re-offenders are caught this way then that's all well and good. However, maintaining a database of innocent people fundamentally changes the relationship between citizen and state, in that it is part of the apparatus that allows the state to surveil everyone whenever they like, and this is de facto undesirable as it removes a significant part of the protection against state authoritarianism.

If there is one lesson that can be learned from current politics and the history of the last couple of centuries it is that states may be good servants, but they are very bad masters, and there's nothing inherently protective about being Western, or civilized or nominally democratic, or any of the other things that we presently imagine ourselves to be.
 
stdPikachu said:
Last I heard, DNA samples could prove no such thing.
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Uusually correct. In absolute terms all a DNA profile does is establish that a trace of someone is in a particular place / on a particular item. If the source of the DNA is known (i.e. it is an identifiable spot of blood which the profile comes from) that may add more value as it means the person has also bled at that point / on that item. Sometimes (e.g. if a suspects fingerprint in the DNA-profiled blood of the victim on the knife proved to be the murder weapon and proved to have been perfectly clean previously) a DNA profile can effectively go much further towards proving guilt ... but I have yet to find one which has told me the suspects intent at the time ... ;)
 
detective-boy said:
No. I am operating in the knowledge of how things actually work, having been a senior investigating officer for five fucking years. :rolleyes:

The fact that someone has a DNA sample on file is absolutely fucking meaningless to an investigating officer. ALL it means is that someone has been arrested for a recordable offence of some sort. It is of no investigative value whatsoever.

You are talking bollocks. Go and find your "interviews" and they will either turn out to be talking about something else (like, perhaps, a conviction for a particular type of offence) which does have some investigative value or I will tear them to pieces as well.
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I'm sure you will 'tear them to pieces' to your satisfaction, but sadly it is clear to plenty of people on this site that you are not capable of thinking about these things in an unbiased manner. Your opinions are interesting as a study in confirmational bias, but alas are not otherwise persuasive.

What about the two schoolgirls charged with criminal damage after drawing chalk on a pavement quoted earlier in the thread? There are apparently 100,000 unconvicted children who are on the DNA database for the rest of their lives - what do you think is going on here?
 
butchersapron said:
Well there was *a* Stephen Sedley QC in the CPG, but having joined the party in 1958 i doubt it's the same one - judging from the picture anyway.
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Looking at photos, I'd say Sedley is in his 60s. If he joined at the minimum age (I believe this was 18 since they said I was too young at 16 in 1974) he would be about 67 today. That's about normal for a judge, surely?
 
England and Wales are the only countries in the world that keep DNA samples from innocent people for life. It is also the largest state collection of DNA samples is the world! Detective boy says 'move along, nothing to see here' - what a fucking surprise!
 
Fruitloop said:
I'm sure you will 'tear them to pieces' to your satisfaction, but sadly it is clear to plenty of people on this site that you are not capable of thinking about these things in an unbiased manner. Your opinions are interesting as a study in confirmational bias, but alas are not otherwise persuasive.

What about the two schoolgirls charged with criminal damage after drawing chalk on a pavement quoted earlier in the thread? There are apparently 100,000 unconvicted children who are on the DNA database for the rest of their lives - what do you think is going on here?
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I think an exploding pig warning needs to go into general effect right about now.
 
Fruitloop said:
You can have a DNA sample taken for all sorts of reasons, like being involved in a pub-fight as I already explained in my post above. In the past the cops have used having a DNA record per se as an indication that someone is a potential suspect if they have some other connection to a particular crime (like just living in that area), and people who have never been convicted (or even accused) of any crime, but who have had their DNA taken for random reasons have then found themselves repeatedly pestered whenever there is some kind of incident in their neighbourhood.
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If that is the basis for your statements, I think you'll find that the existence of a fucking DNA sample is entirely irrelevant. What identifies them as possible suspects is the intelligence / criminal record system. And usually the existence of a conviction or arrest for a similar or precursor type of offence. And if they are on those systems, with or without a DNA sample, they MAY be considered for interview and implication/elimination.

This is extremely rarely done and only in the most serious crimes, where all other possible leads have been tried and failed.

The only possible time I would consider the existence of a DNA profile on file as being relevant would be if there was reliable evidence of forensic awareness (e.g. a rapist using a condom and taking it away with them) though even then it could be just as much indicative of not wanting to leave a trace that could later be identified as them as a trace which could immediately be identified as them from a sample on file ... and so I cannot see any investigator restricting themselves to people with DNA samples already in the system.
 
Well if you were all police I'm sure everything would be hunky dory. However, it's your moronic, masonic, racist, violent colleagues that are the cause for concern.
 
untethered said:
The only effective counter is to run active campaigns to turn the tide the other way. First, for DNA to be retained only when there is a conviction. Then, to limit it to serious offences.
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I think you'll find both police and Home Office are moving in that direction (there is a review of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act which reports in February and from what Tony McNulty has been saying today things will move some way in that direction).

As for serious offences only, I would disagree. Lots (and I mean lots) of rapists start of with relatively minor precursor offences (flashing, sexual assault), lots of murderers have previous convictions for minor violence and disorder offences. The current definition of a recordable offence (punishable by imprisonment) would include much I would suspect you would consider non-serious but which could be a lot more relevant than maybe you realise and which would very significantly reduce the number of serious crimes cleared up by DNA matches. There is perhaps scope to make a list of some pretty boring recordable offences which could be omitted but that would complicate matters unnecessarily. I think it is a reasonable downside of committing a recordable offence of any sort that your DNA, prints, etc are on file as part of your criminal record.
 
Fruitloop said:
I'm sure you will 'tear them to pieces' to your satisfaction, but sadly it is clear to plenty of people on this site that you are not capable of thinking about these things in an unbiased manner. Your opinions are interesting as a study in confirmational bias, but alas are not otherwise persuasive.

What about the two schoolgirls charged with criminal damage after drawing chalk on a pavement quoted earlier in the thread? There are apparently 100,000 unconvicted children who are on the DNA database for the rest of their lives - what do you think is going on here?
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Clearly you have a preordained position and you are incapable of considering different aspects independently. Are you really suggesting that the chalk monsters will be picked up for the next rape or murder just because they have a DNA profile on file ... :rolleyes:

Come back when you have learned how to seperate argument from rhetoric. Bye.
 
Fruitloop said:
England and Wales are the only countries in the world that keep DNA samples from innocent people for life. It is also the largest state collection of DNA samples is the world! Detective boy says 'move along, nothing to see here' - what a fucking surprise!
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For the record, no I don't. As I am sure anyone who can read will know already.

What I do say is that no-one is ever picked up during a trawl of the "usual suspects" simply because they have a DNA-profile on file. Which was Fruitloops original assertion.
 
detective-boy said:
Are you really suggesting that the chalk monsters will be picked up for the next rape or murder just because they have a DNA profile on file ...
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No, his stance, as well as mine, is that they shouldn't have their DNA on file at all. Do the police keep fingerprints, dental and health records for every citizen in the UK?
 
I'm sorry, you can's dismiss me that easily here, officer. If you want to flounce again though I can't stop you.

There are no safeguards to prevent someone whose DNA has been found at a crime-scene (which may of course be a public place) and matched on the register being treated as more of a suspect than someone whose DNA is not on the register. Given that groups that are already the targets of your admitted 'institutional racism' are vastly over-represented (two thirds of all black men, for example) it's perfectly reasonable to consider this part of that wider problem.

In addition to which, DNA evidence allows the permanent tracking of a person, plus it also reveals highly private information about them in terms of their health and heredity, none of which are adequately safeguarded or are the sorts of things that most people would wish to entrust to the filth.

Included in the statement of purpose for the DNA database is also that "A one-off speculative search approach is also used for conducting familial searches of the Database to identify offenders through possible close relatives of an offender whose profile is not on the Database". Notwithstanding that paternity information is highly private and not something that people would want to come out as part of a criminal investigation, it is also non-specific and runs the risk of implicating people who are simply related to one or more criminals.
 
stdPikachu said:
No, his stance, as well as mine, is that they shouldn't have their DNA on file at all.
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I have posted from the outset that I believe we should have a system where DNA is only retained where there is a conviction. Why can't people fucking (a) read, (b) comprehend, (c) seperate out ideas and (d) see past their fucking prejudices and preconceived ideas ... :mad: :mad: :mad:
 
Fruitloop said:
I'm sorry, you can's dismiss me that easily here, officer.
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I can fucking ignore you though.

There are no safeguards to prevent someone whose DNA has been found at a crime-scene (which may of course be a public place) and matched on the register being treated as more of a suspect than someone whose DNA is not on the register.
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Mind those speeding goalposts now ... :rolleyes:

So now we are talking about people who's DNA matches a sample found at the scene ... rather than people who are treated as suspects simply because of the fact that have a DNA profile on file which is what you initially stated.

Stop fucking digging. You were wrong and you know it.
 
They are obviously separate issues, dimwit. People could be linked by having DNA found at the scene (which as I pointed out would be perfectly normal if they were in a public place), or the database could be searched in other ways. I mean you may be an ex-copper, but I build databases for a living so I do know how they work.
 
detective-boy said:
I have posted from the outset that I believe we should have a system where DNA is only retained where there is a conviction.
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Right, OK, good, but I think the argument over the DNA "paper trail" should be treated as a seperate issue.
 
Software incompetents like me will no doubt ensure it's a massive failure, so I wouldn't worry just yet.
 
Another issue: the 'Prum' treaty:

The Government recently signed up to something called the Prum Treaty. This is an agreement to share criminal data across the EU, including DNA.

Since Britain has by the far the largest DNA database in Europe, how this treaty operates is of great importance to those whose profiles are retained. Other EU police forces will have access to the UK database on a "hit, no hit'' basis. In other words, the British authorities will inform their counterparts in, say, France whether a profile they have forwarded is retained on the British system.

If it is, what would the police in France think?

Let us imagine they are investigating the rape of a girl at a campsite and they take the DNA of all men staying there. Would they not be suspicious of a person whose DNA shows a positive match on the UK's criminal database, since their own does not have a million innocent people on it?

So you may have nothing to hide but if, like our correspondent now on the criminal database for being beaten up by someone who ran into his car, there may be something to fear. Who knows what would happen to him were he considered a suspect in a serious crime while on holiday abroad on the sole grounds that his DNA was a "hit'' on the UK system?
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/05/28/do2802.xml

Fuck me, it gets worse the more you look at it.
 
mauvais said:
Software incompetents like me will no doubt ensure it's a massive failure, so I wouldn't worry just yet.
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That seems to be working already:

Thousands asked to give their details to police upon arrest have given false names or alternative spellings of their names. In other cases, mistakes have been made in the spelling of names. Some files include names belonging to someone else, or names of people who do not exist. Altogether there are 550,000 "replica" files.

MPs have questioned whether the false data could lead to innocent people, whose names may have been maliciously given to police by suspects, being questioned about crimes they have not committed.
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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2896193.ece
 
Fruitloop said:
They are obviously separate issues, dimwit. People could be linked by having DNA found at the scene (which as I pointed out would be perfectly normal if they were in a public place), or the database could be searched in other ways. I mean you may be an ex-copper, but I build databases for a living so I do know how they work.
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Stop digging!
 
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