Labour: We'll keep DNA of both innocent and guilty

Avatar · Labour: We'll keep DNA of both innocent and guilty

"THE DNA samples of thousands of innocent Scots could be kept on file indefinitely under plans announced yesterday by the Labour Party to crack down on dangerous criminals.

Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, said that if Labour wins another term in office next year, it will bring Scotland into line with the rest of Britain by allowing police to retain the DNA of all crime suspects, regardless of whether they are eventually convicted.
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In England and Wales, this has led to the DNA of more than a million people who have never been convicted of a crime being kept on file.

Human-rights groups have branded the proposed crackdown in Scotland as an unnecessary infringement of civil liberties. The move has also put further strain on the ruling coalition, as the Liberal Democrats are against the plan.

Currently, DNA samples taken when someone is arrested in Scotland must be destroyed - at an estimated annual cost of £500,000 - if that person is not convicted. From early next year, police forces will be allowed to keep the DNA of those accused of serious violent and sexual offences for up to three years, even if they are not charged or convicted.

But Ms Jamieson insisted Scotland had to go further. She said: "The question that other parties have failed to answer is why families in England should get better protection from criminals than in Scotland and why the police there should have more tools at their disposal for catching criminals than the police here."

She went on: "I was always keen to get a similar system in Scotland, but other parties resisted it.

"Now Labour will make the proposal in its manifesto for the next election and challenge other parties to explain their objection to cutting crime and convicting criminals."

The minister claimed that from 2001, when the authorities in England were allowed to retain DNA samples from anyone suspected of a crime, forces there were able to link more than 7,000 suspects to more than 10,000 cases.

"There were more than 100 murders or attempted murders in that total, and over 100 rapes, too," Ms Jamieson said. "These are all identifications that have only been possible because of the DNA database there."

Willie Bald, the Deputy Chief Constable of Tayside Police and a spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS), said officers would welcome an extension of powers. He said: "DNA has proved to be a very valuable tool in the investigation and detection of crime.

"ACPOS has actively campaigned for a broadening of the circumstances in which DNA profiles can be retained in Scotland."

However, Labour's coalition partners are against the idea. A spokesman for the Lib Dems said: "The trouble with Labour's obsession with gimmicks like this is that they simply do not work. If you look at the position south of the Border where Labour have introduced policies like this, they have failed to cut reoffending and done nothing to increase public safety.

"The Liberal Democrats are much more interested in policies which deal with the very real problem of reoffending rates."

Stewart Stevenson, of the SNP, warned innocent people were in danger of having their DNA used for commercial purposes. He also said people should have the right to challenge retention of their DNA in court. "There are very real dangers without adequate constitutional protection," he said.

Sue Mayer, director of the campaign group Genewatch, said the DNA of innocent people could be abused both by the law and commercial companies, and added: "It would be extremely disappointing if Scotland was to take the backward step of coming into line with England and Wales when actually it has made progressive steps in taking a more reasonable line."

She said keeping the DNA of hundreds of thousands of people would be time-consuming and expensive for police, and would not improve crime detection as the samples of innocent people would clutter up the system.

Gareth Crossman, director of policy at the civil-rights group Liberty, said: "We have held Scotland up as having a proper, sensible approach to DNA retention and it is a real shame if this proportionate, appropriate response is going the same way as the rest of Britain."
Is database the best way forward?
YES

Paul Martin

SINCE being established, the Scottish Parliament has tried to balance civil liberties and the rights of victims. Often we fail to remember that victims of crime are also innocent members of society, and it is helping those victims that must be paramount in our minds during the debate on DNA retention.

I believe that by giving the police the right tools to tackle and detect crimes with a modern, proactive and forensic approach, we are taking a positive step forward, and that is why powers of DNA retention is the right thing to do. Retention of DNA by the police of those suspected of a crime would help catch more criminals and make our communities safer. This is a real issue affecting real communities, and politicians and political parties must respond. Of course, it is a difficult issue, but politics is about difficult decisions.

The reason for doing this is clear: more convictions for serious crimes. But would DNA retention lead to a police state, as some will argue? It hasn't in England. Thousands of crimes in England have been solved since police were given the powers of DNA retention. Criminals who would previously have gone untraced and undetected are now facing justice.

If just one offence was prevented, it would be worth consideration, but the crimes the police now have convictions for include some of the most serious and despicable crimes, such as murder and rape. That is why it is important Labour is fighting for DNA retention.

The example in England shows this system can work and achieve results. Already, progress is being made in Scotland to tackle crime, with more police, new antisocial behaviour laws and crime falling. We have the chance to tackle head-on people who would have avoided detection for crimes such as murder, attempted murder, rape and other sexual offences, aggravated burglaries and the supply of controlled drugs - crimes that every day affect the towns and cities of Scotland as a minority or people attempt to ruin things for the majority.

Opposition parties must ask themselves why they could find themselves standing in the way of Labour's plan to cut crime and convict criminals.

DNA retention is an important tool that would aid the police to cut crime and convict criminals. That is why I cannot understand the Liberals, SNP and others who have failed to explain why they are a roadblock to Labour's determination to come down hard on crime and criminals.

On what side are those opposed to these plans - that of the communities or that of criminal? Why are the Liberals and SNP so scared to stand up for victims and give the police modern tools to do the job?

• Paul Martin is a Labour MSP
NO

Patrick Harvie

DNA is an important tool in combating crime, including some of the most serious offences such as rape. But keeping the entire population under 24-hour surveillance would help combat crime too, and most people agree that this would go too far. How far should we go with DNA? What is the right balance between individual privacy, public safety and the surveillance society?

The Labour Party proposal goes too far. Parliament recently agreed to the retention of the DNA profiles of those accused but not convicted of specific serious offences, and with clear controls such as time limits. In that way, a balance was struck. But the new proposal would add huge numbers of innocent citizens to the database, with no proof that they actually pose a public risk.

In her press release, Cathy Jamieson asks her critics why Scotland should have less protection from crime than England, where these new powers already exist. The answer of course is that we shouldn't, but that we can learn lessons about what works there and what doesn't. Compare the targeted approach that we're already using in Scotland - storing specific people's DNA profiles (for example when they have been made the subject of a Risk of Sexual Harm Order because of known risk factors) with the situation in England and Wales, where more than a million people have been added to the database since 2004. In both cases we see some success, but the DNA detection rate south of the border has not increased. It is clear that just making the database bigger doesn't help. This should prompt Westminster to learn from Holyrood, not the other way around.

There are other problems with the Labour proposal. They want to store not just DNA profiles, but the biological samples themselves. This leaves open the possibility that the samples will be put to new uses, beyond the profiling we can do today.

Time limits are another important safeguard, reducing the likelihood that the database could be misused, for example by tracking the family relationships of investigated people through their shared DNA, or checking applications for travel documents or public sector jobs against the database. Even democratic governments can and do misuse information held about citizens, and a DNA database with no time limits would grow into a powerful tool for any such unscrupulous government.

I am not opposed to the use of DNA by the police and the justice system. I want the greatest possible value from this important tool, at the lowest possible risk of misuse or harm. Scotland's current targeted approach will achieve this, whereas the new Labour proposal will take us too far toward a society in which every one of us is a suspect, and privacy is seen as a sign of guilt.

• Patrick Harvie is a Green Party MSP"

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1920582006

The Lithgae Jambo

A cheap gimmick to try and attract votes from the gullible amongst us who think DNA is infallible - and done in the full knowledge that the proposal was thrown out by Parliament earlier this year and it will be thrown out again if they dare put it forward as ALL opposition parties are against it.

Niall

Aventinian

Can you please point me to an EU directive addressed to the UK insisting on the building of such a database?

Inevitably, I am against such measures. However, playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, one might also say the same of criminals - when they have finished their sentence, surely their debt to society is paid and their personal information collected in the course of proceedings destroyed? Treating them with greater suspicion than the average person surely leaves them tainted by their past.

wisnaeme

Aventinian

Babygael

A country that has to bag,tag and lable everyone, is one without faith in their 'ain folk and an increasingly paranoid and suffocating type of governing and controling bunch of freaks! BACK OFF!!

Niall