http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6979138.stm
Why do people have a problem with this?
If it protects us (Which it obviously will) from violent crime and terrorism.... then why are people complaining about giving their DNA sample?
The answer - cos they've done something wrong!
Feel free to take my DNA, and I'm sure all my family would be happy too... if it makes a safer Britain (Safe being something the UK will take a while to get to).
DNA doesn't lie - if everyone gives a sample then the police can save a lot of wasted time in investigations, giving them more time to deal with the next crime (plus you get another criminal off the streets).
Does anyone else take my viewpoint? If not - what's your argument for not wanting an All-UK DNA Database? Other than 'It's just not right'. I think that in not taking measures such as this to protect the inocent, that the government are in fact breaching our rights as inocent people to be protected from violent criminals. Where technology gives us the option to further protect people, it should be used.
Am in full agreement Matt and actually believe DNA should be taken at birth.
I know there are those who will shout about human rights but as a member of Amnesty international i believe i have a more realistic idea of what human rights really means.
For all those in doubt look at it this way,if giving your DNA could stop that cute little toddler from the end of your street being abducted and being literally raped to death,whilst being filmed,would you hesitate then.I'd like to think not.
Can't agree enough with you both. I think that 'human rights' have gone a little askew of recent years and criminals seem to be able to offend qas much as they like and simply get a slap on the wrist.
DNA samples would help prevent serial offends commit repeatedly and I would willingly give a sample of my DNA as I've got nothing to hide.
Exactly. Yet the media always decides! It all depends how they report on things.... like reporting how much of a nanny-state we live in rather than how much we are being protected.
They say it would be expensive to start - but think how much police time would be cut investigating crimes because the DNA wasn't on record.
On that note,absolutely not.Doesnt really matter in my case my dna's aready been taken. But I would be willing to give a sample if it hadnt,& before any one asks why it was taken in the first place,its a military thing & anyone foolish enough to think those samples are destoyed more fool you On the serious side of this I agree with you both.
Before I state my OPINION Id just like to say that I am not trying to start an argument, before anyone rips into me or reports me for being argumentative. I'd like to think I am entitled to an opinion just like everyone else, even if it disagrees with the other people's opinion.
How can taking samples of our DNA 'protect us' from crime? It can't, all it MAY do is locate the owner of said DNA. Nothing is infallible, and I'll put money on DNA tests getting *mixed up at some point and innocent folk being accused of a crime they didn't commit. *personal details wrongly matched to someone else
I take offence at your comment Matt, just because folk object, or refuse, to giving their DNA does NOT mean they have done something wrong. It's about freedom to choose, and I choose NOT to. Until it's made compulsory of course, seems to be the way of things lately...if they can't make us volunteer they press -gang us into it by making it LAW.
I've tried twice to make a reasoned answer to this one suggesting that, whatever the theoretical advantages, a massive IT project like this can always be scuppered by sod's law and the human factor, and that's before you start any philosophical argument over the rights and wrongs.
Each time the post has vanished into an electronic black hole, which perhaps prooves my point.
lol @ Wills - very funny. No idea what went wrong, could be the government again haha.
Scenario 1 just for Kwak...
Mr Pedo whos never been 'caught' doing anything wrong before before gets caught sexually abusing a child.
His DNA is on file, taken at birth.... he get's taken off the street, put in prison and gets what he deserves there.
The streets are safer, and God knows how many children have been saved.
Scenario 2 as a comparison...
Child gets raped, unsure who by. DNA left behind though.
No DNA on file, as Mr Pedo never had his DNA taken at birth.
Mr Pedo stays on the streets to abuse more children and continue until he eventually gets caught in the act.
Which would you prefer Kwak?
This might sound a little simplified but our justice system was based on anybody being innocent until proven guilty. To me this sounds like the beginning of a new era, of being guilty until proven innocent.
its bad enough we have to watch Big Brother without big brother starting to watch us!!!!!!!!
I've got a friend who 10 yrs or so was attacked and raped. She was only 14 yrs old at the time. She recovered from the physical scars very nicely thank you. When she was 21 she answered a knock at the door to find 2 policewomen standing there. They had come to inform her that the DNA they had found after she had been raped had been linked to at least 3 other attacks and a man had been arrested at the scene of another completely unrelated street robbery. His DNA matched all 4 rapes/sexual assaults. So, for me, had his DNA already been on file he wouldn't have raped my friend as he would have been caught after the first attack. I wouldn't have had to watch a fun loving bubbly girl change into a timid shadow of her former self who even now doesn't very often go out.
If you are arrested now ( even if later found innocent ) you have your DNA taken and stored. Maybe we should look at having everyone's DNA stored if it serves to make people think before committing any kind of offence, I don't really know if would be a workable thing or not. All I know is my friend wouldn't have had to go through what she did if this bloke had been caught after the first offence!
PS:
Just ONE child saved is worth all of us registering our DNA!
Just ONE old lady saved from mugging is worth all of us registering our DNA!
Just ONE less murder, rape, mugging or other violent crime is worth us all registering our DNA!
If one person's life could have been saved by us having our DNA registered - then it's worth every penny that it costs.
The examples in my previous post were to describe how the DNA Database DOES protect us, a very blunt but true example. Many children would be saved every year, and the statistics already prove that violent criminals have been taken off the street thanks to keeping their DNA on file even when they weren't prosecuted.
Diane - in your example, we could have prevented 4 of the 5 serious crimes.... thats an 80% drop in crime. 3 ladies wouldn't have been scarred for life.
This whole concept of having everyone's DNA on file could be the end of the UKs crime problem - yet people are fighting it for some reason.
It doesn't mean your guilty just because the police know who you are IF you do something wrong. It only helps PROVE you're guilty when you DO do something wrong... and until that time, it helps PROVE that you're NOT guilty.
Sorry - another PPPPPS:
There's hundreds of thousands of crimes recorded such as rapes and murders where there is DNA evidence but nobody to match it up with. If these laws were passed, we could guarentee the removal of these people from our society (Unless they run off to another country - either way the UK can't loose out). How can this be a bad thing?
Unless you have something to fear, then there should be no problem with it.
From the BBC: "Police now get more than 3,500 DNA matches a month. In 2005/6 they got matches for 45,000 crimes, including 422 murders and 645 rapes."
This is with a database of 4 million... imagine what would happen with a database of 60+ million... thats 15 times more DNA to search through, and 15 times more chance of detection.
IMPACT OF DNA ON CRIME DETECTION
CRIME
NATIONAL DETECTION RATE
DNA DETECTION RATE
All recorded crime
26%
40%
Domestic burglary
16%
41%
Non-domestic burglary
11%
50%
Theft of vehicle
15%
24%
Theft from vehicle
8%
63%
Criminal damage
14%
51%
Source: Home Office (04/05 figures)
I dont mind having my DNA taken and stored, but there seems to be a very simplistic view going on.
So you catch all these criminals ...... brilliant, i support that 100%
Then you jail all these criminals ......... aaaaah, now we hit the problem, if people are not being jailed or being released early already, then all these extra people are just going to make the situation worse.
So now what you would end up with is people that everyone knows has committed an offence walking round having hardly been punished and metaphorically rubbing their victims nose in it.
So 6 months after a rape, the victim is still trying to come to terms with what happened, but the rapist has been punished and served their time?
2 years down the line the murderer walks free.
As has perviously been pointed out the room for error is huge, humans and technology can be a very bad mix. DNA unique to a person, seen by the jury to be irrefutable proof of guilt, and it may just be a keying error by a tired distracted office person. So you then have to prove that it is not your DNA, but mud sticks.
We, the law abiding have to give up a civil liberty to protect us from those that want to abuse our rights in the first place. They already have more rights than we do, it should be that those who break the rule of society, do not have the protection of those rules.
The deterent should be that punishment really is just that, punishment. Maybe if people have those rights taken away then they would learn respect for them. They would learn that society protects the law abiders and casts aside the law breakers.
People should be forced to accept responisbility for themselves and their actions. That would have to come from a grass roots level ie Make people work for their benefits like they have to in Canada. Kids of under 16 to have a curfew like in Normandie, if you are under age and caught out after either 8 or 9 pm without adult supervision, then you are taken home by the police and your parents made to answer for your actions.
People are losing respect for society and its rules and a DNA database is not going to solve that.
Answers - The hugely reduced policing time, probably 50%, could allow for more funding for prisons - maybe doubling the number of prisons very easily and affordably.
If the system flags someone as being guilty, but they say they're not.... then what's to stop them giving another sample to prove their point?
There's no room for error as far as I can see... if you think there's an error, you can always have the chance to prove so by giving another sample for the courts.
Plus - who's going to risk commiting murder etc if they know their DNA is on file, or muggings, burglaries and everything else. Crime would almost disappear!
Good riddence to all the criminals out there, bring back a safer Britain (Maybe I wouldn't have needed to emigrate then!).
perhaps with dna catching the 'right'murderer we could think about killing them!!!as for human error that exists in everything,there is no perfect answer to any thing,we jus bumble along trying to do the right thing,dna go for it why not?obvious ly the samples would be double checked if not more b4,with countless appeals from human rights lawers b4 the bugger finally swings!!
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