Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 40 total)
  • Deoxyribonucleic acid and the storage thereof
  • CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    About flipping time!

    Dr Helen Wallace from the charity Genewatch, told the BBC samples taken from people who turn out to be innocent should not be kept at all:

    She said: “If you are a suspect for a crime you should be able to have your DNA taken during that investigation.

    “But why does it need to be held on file – that shouldn’t be the case unless you’ve been convicted.”

    Well, exactly.

    tooslow
    Free Member

    You wait until they take a sample for your ID card 🙁

    trailmonkey
    Full Member

    Mark Thomas and Cap’n Flash – unlikely bedfellows. Shows what a mess the .gov must be in if those two have some common ground.

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    tooslow
    Free Member

    There’s an image that I didn’t want in my head!

    trailmonkey
    Full Member

    apologies 😯

    Moses
    Full Member

    Well the police want them because there’s a good chance that the numeric profile will help solve future crimes, e.g. arrested for but not charged with a minor scuffle in the street today, charged with a fraud in 2020.

    My problem is that DNA evidence is regarded as the be-all and end-all of guilt, and may override other evidence. What happens when you sneeze in the tube, or have a spontaneous nose-bleed (which I do, occasionally) then the woman next to you gets raped on the way home. You’re miles away, but your DNA is there. Or a couple of hairs from your coat in the restaurant cloakroom get transferred to the one next to you?

    Is DNA evidence overrated? Can some biochemist discuss?

    I think there was a case in the 90s where a man was convicted of raping a friend on DNA evidence – yet SHE said it wasn’t him!

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Didn’t we have a long thread about this recently?

    I personally think that a proper National DNA database containing the DNA profile of every person in the UK (resident or visitor) would be quite a good thing in the main.

    Far more useful than a National ID card or any such nonsense.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    My problem is that DNA evidence is regarded as the be-all and end-all of guilt, and may override other evidence. What happens when you sneeze in the tube, or have a spontaneous nose-bleed (which I do, occasionally) then the woman next to you gets raped on the way home. You’re miles away, but your DNA is there.

    The context of the DNA is pretty vital as well. A single stray hair (which would still need an intact hair follicle) wouldn’t be anything more than circumstantial evidence. DNA from multiple hair and skin cells under the victims fingernails is more damning. DNA from semen even more so.

    simonfbarnes
    Free Member

    Mark Thomas and Cap’n Flash – unlikely bedfellows.

    let’s face it, no one else’d ‘ave em :o)

    Moses
    Full Member

    GS- I agree, but do the police and courts pay attention to context?
    Is DNA presented as definite proof or just one factor?

    In the case I half-remember, it was weighted more than verbal evidence by the victim.

    uplink
    Free Member

    There’s certainly some concern that juries see DNA evidence as irrefutable – regardless of the judge’s instructions

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    GS- I agree, but do the police and courts pay attention to context?
    Is DNA presented as definite proof or just one factor?

    IANAL, but DNA should never be presented as definite proof of anything as it doesn’t generally show that a person committed the actual crime, only that they were present (before or during) and had some form of contact.

    However I think this is a separate issue and I’m not sure how a National DNA database would alter how DNA evidence was presented in court.

    Currently once you become a suspect the police can already take your DNA and use it as part of building a case against you.

    So I think the difference would mainly be that at the investigation stage where you might actually become a suspect because your DNA was present, rather than becoming a suspect through other channels and then them matching your DNA.

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    Found not guilty or not charged then the sample should be destroyed. Only the guilty need be on file and they should be removed after 12 years max.

    Nick
    Full Member

    I wonder when we’ll start to put as much effort into building a society where we reduce the likelihood of people becoming criminals as we do in trying to catch them once the’ve committed a crime.

    A DNA database of all persons in the UK will be abused, it will contain errors, it will be fallible, can you imagine the nightmare if your DNA got mixed up with someone else’s, presumption of innocence? Yeah right.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    I wonder when we’ll start to put as much effort into building a society where we reduce the likelihood of people becoming criminals as we do in trying to catch them once the’ve committed a crime.

    Isn’t fear of capture a fairly strong motivator against committing a crime?

    If you built a perfect society where everyone was blissfully happy at all times then I suspect there would still be some crime.

    A DNA database of all persons in the UK will be abused, it will contain errors, it will be fallible, can you imagine the nightmare if your DNA got mixed up with someone else’s, presumption of innocence? Yeah right.

    So what you’re saying is that the current DNA database is also abused and contains errors, but that doesn’t matter as most people in it were guilty of something at some point?

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    A DNA database containing only the DNA of those previously convicted is bizarrely irrational. It means that the tool is of no value to catch people who persistently and successfully evade capture.

    If you accept the basic premise that the all-seeing state should be able to keep you safe by being able readily to identify anyone who does anything ever then it only makes sense if the database contains everyone’s DNA so that everyone can be identified. If that sounds creepy, it’s because it is.

    I agree with Moses’ concerns about the evidential value of DNA work as well.

    jon1973
    Free Member

    Moses

    What happens when you sneeze in the tube

    You should use a tissue mate, haven’t you seen the adverts?. You shouldn’t be sneezing over strange women on the tube.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    I agree with Moses’ concerns about the evidential value of DNA work as well.

    I agree too – but that cat is out of the bag. DNA is already used in criminal cases. It’s up to the courts to ensure juries are properly instructed on the value and gravity of DNA evidence being presented.

    It’s also worth considering that a complete DNA database would also help in identifying victims, such as the recent Jeffrey Howe murder where his “body parts” that were scattered across two counties and it took police over a month and numerous public appeals to identify his remains.

    Moses
    Full Member

    Alright then, when some disgusting oik gobs on a seat, the phlegm dries, then someone sits on it. “His DNA was on her jeans”

    They both use the same tube/bus station, they could have met. He happened to have been at home watching TV the night of the assault. Try proving it.

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    If someone is dead, has been chopped into bits and hidden around the country, the fact that the police can identify him quite easily from his DNA is of no conceivable utility to him. That is the worst sort of reactive policing, creating expense and a demand for scientific tools and increased powers to no significant effect. There will always be further refinement to the practice of hiding the bodies.

    Where I’m going with this, quite simply, is that I do not see the value in attempting to equip the police force to solve all of the most difficult and thrilling crimes using the lastest scientific methods, when they are largely incapable of preventing bog-basic ones like south London teenagers poking one another with sharp objects for pathetic reasons, or junkies breaking into my house to borrow my television. I can see why the police want a massive database of everyone’s DNA, and I can see why it is useful to governments to have such things, but I struggle to see any significant value to the citizen. 🙂

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    He happened to have been at home watching TV the night of the assault. Try proving it.

    No need. Presumption of innocence still stands. The presence of DNA doesn’t show he committed a crime. It’s up to the prosecution to prove he committed a crime and superficial DNA evidence alone is not sufficient.

    But the bigger point is that, currently, if the miscarriage of justice that you outline could occur then it would be because the oik has committed some previous crime so his DNA is on record.

    Thus the jury is already doubly against him. His DNA was present AND he was on file so he must be a criminal.

    So the current system is worse but it only persecutes criminals so acceptable?

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    If someone is dead, has been chopped into bits and hidden around the country, the fact that the police can identify him quite easily from his DNA is of no conceivable utility to him.

    By that argument we should only worry about solving repeating murders. No point worrying about one-offs as the victim is already dead.

    In reality, quickly identifying the victim means the police can be on the trail of the offenders faster, which means that other evidence is fresher and they are more likely to be in the vicinity – so the chance of capture increases.

    Plus less police resources are used attempting to identify the victim, so more are available to aid in the capture of the suspects.

    I do not see the value in attempting to equip the police force to solve all of the most difficult and thrilling crimes using the lastest scientific methods

    Maybe my example was too extreme. There is no reason why DNA couldn’t be used to help catch the the junkies that stole your TV, apprehend people in stabbings and other less thrilling crimes.

    The easiest way to get away with a crime is to avoid being identified as a suspect in the first place.

    mogrim
    Full Member

    Thing is, GrahamS, that the database will get used for something else, not just crime solving. Maybe not this government, maybe not the next – but at some point down the line the database will be sold. The information is too valuable not to be sold.

    And that’s when you find insurance companies are refusing you cover because there’s a possibility you might get cancer, that your kids are singled out for special attention at school due to a “gay” gene, and that you’re not allowed to fly because you’re potentially agressive…

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    No it won’t. Because that information simply isn’t stored in a DNA Profiling database.

    It only stores statistical information about certain loci, NOT a complete record of an individuals DNA.

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    The argument is essentially whether one wants a police force that is proactive, present in communities and achieves plenty of reassurance and a modest degree of deterrence through its presence, or one which is largely reactive and absent, solving crimes which have already occurred and hoping that victims will be reassured and potential criminals deterred by the high chance that the file will be closed with a successful conviction.

    We currently have a largely reactive police force, with a great fondness for scientific toys, greater powers, guns, helicopters, fast cars and thermal-imaging paraphenalia which achieves a brilliant conviction rate for murder, and risibly low one for the crimes that actually affect most people, while costing a fortune and being depressingly widely mistrusted. That is not a great result for anyone.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Surely by supporting them with the best technology we can get, we help free up police resources to put bobbies back on the beat?

    risibly low one for the crimes that actually affect most people

    Come back with some crime figures comparing the rates of offences leading to charges from the golden era of bobbies on the beat to the present day.

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    Surely by supporting them with the best technology we can get, we help free up police resources to put bobbies back on the beat?

    It does not work like that, now does it? Every officer busy swabbing a crime scene for microscopic flecks of semen is busy doing just that.

    And of course conviction rates were equally low, but I am not sure that is the point. People used to be measurably less afraid of crime. Modern policing (together with media and political hysteria admittedly) has achieved a situation in which the largest and most expensive police force we have ever had has driven the incidence of crime down but the fear of it up. That is a truly astonishign achievement. If you wanted to cow and control your population until they were happy to accept any state intrusion into their lives you cared to suggest you’d carry on with more of the same. If you were serious about improving people’s lives you’d try something else. 🙂

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Every officer busy swabbing a crime scene for microscopic flecks of semen is busy doing just that.

    So it’s better for them to ignore that evidence and do some “real police work” instead?

    In fact the officers involved in DNA collection at a scene would presumably be a forensic unit, not a bobby who has been drafted in from his usual patrol around the park.

    Modern policing (together with media and political hysteria admittedly)….

    I agree with your point, but I think the media and politics has far more to do with it than the police wasting time catching people instead of preventing crime.

    genghispod
    Free Member

    BigDummy

    Quite.

    joe1983
    Free Member

    If ‘they’ start to require DNA and ID cards, as I believe they will do soon if unchecked by good ol’ Joanna Lumley, I’m leaving the UK.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    I’m not very keen on ID cards, mainly because they’ll be extremely expensive and I can’t see how they prevent any crime or help catch any criminals – never mind “the terrorist threat” (real or imagined)

    But why would you leave the UK over a DNA database?

    samuri
    Free Member

    I don’t know so I’m interested. I presume the majority of crimes in this country outside of motor crime are thefts followed by violence. How much DNA is typically left behind at either of these crimes? if someone breaks into my house and steals my telly, presumably the DNA tests cost a lot of money to find the sperm they left in my house and analyse it and then do a database search. cheaper just to buy me a new telly. likewise, if I knife someone. I’m not going to spit on them, normally I’ll just run off.

    so how does the dna database help these crimes?

    zaskar
    Free Member

    Muppets.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Samuri: DNA gets left everywhere. You don’t need spern or saliva, those are just obvious rich sources. Hair, blood and skin cells can also be used.

    On the radio on the way home there was a news story about two 18 year old girls being abducted and raped by a group of unknown men. Listening to it, all I could think was “They wouldn’t be unknown for long with a DNA database”.

    samuri
    Free Member

    yeah, but presumably, and I appreciate I’m a complete novice here because I don’t watch CSI, if I wear gloves and a hat, I’m not going to leave much lying around.

    the two girls raped is a fair point, I should imagine it’s fairly hard to keep your dna to yourself under those circumstances but it should be clear that with a DNA database, the two men would still be unknown but the police would now have a distinct list of suspects.

    I agree that the existance of a database might well reduce the incidents of such crimes though, although it might also change the modus operandi.

    joe1983
    Free Member

    Why, because for me that would be the watershed between what was once a liberal nation and an Orweillian society.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Samuri: true, premeditated crime would still continue. But people who have removed all their body hair, exfoliated all dead skin and wear all-over body condoms would stick out a bit 🙂

    Joe1983: sorry I just don’t see that as remotely Orwellian. Big Brother wouldn’t be watching your DNA? ID cards yeah, fair enough.

    joe1983
    Free Member

    I definitely the see collection and storage of innocent citizens genetic information by the government, allied with increased monitoring by CCTV, email and internet monitoring, a national ID database ect as being very 1984

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    But what specifically is your concern about a DNA database joe?

    When I first thought about it my initial reaction was the same. Bad for privacy, civil liberties etc.
    But when I considered it in more detail I’m not convinced there is any real issue with it other than general mistrust and fear.

    Munqe-chick
    Free Member

    oohh very interesting debate!!! some intruiging responses here.

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