The Policeman's Blog

Hi,

I notice that you have specified the text colours for this entry. This affects the legibility for people who read it in other places with different colour schemes (for example, the syndicated account in Livejournal, where I read your blog in my "friends" page). It's not been a problem before, but this entry barely shows up against a black background and would be lost to anyone with a grey one! Just thought I'd let you know.
 

The cost/benefit ratio is a valid argument. Currently taking a mouth swab from an arrested person and filling out the control form takes maybe 5 minutes maximum. As this is a person who is believed to have already committed a crime it is worth having their DNA n record as it is likely they will offend again.

The cost of getting samples from law abiding members of the public would be vast.

Each person would have to attend a location, presumably a police station (wasting their time) then as well as the 5 minutes taking the swab and doing the form a further significant period of time would have to be spent fingerprinting and obtaining and verifying other information like name, date of birth and so on. With arrestees this process is being done anyway so the additional time collecting DNA is minimal. In fact these days many if not most arrestees are already on the DNA database because as we all know most crimes of violence or dishonesty are committed by repeat offenders.

So the cost of extending the database would be vast. The benefits to be gained would on the other hand be small. Why take DNA from millions of old age pensioners to ensure a handful of criminals are detected sooner.

I would argue that greater public good would come from spending the time and money needed for a full national DNA database on more police officers to prevent crime happening in the first place or for that matter on more prisons so less crime is committed by criminals released early.
 

A few questions:-

What about people who simply refuse to attend voluntarily? who will physically drag these people kicking and screaming to a "collection" point?

What about celbrities and the mega rich. Are they going to stand in line with the average Joe like good little obediant people?

What about those who are almost invisible. Who don't have a paper trail and live on the edges of society in the shadows.

Who's going to go into a travellers site and start dragging a bunch of gypsies to the nearest nick?

The only people who will comply voluntarily are the average well behaved middle class type person who does not commit crime and pays their way in society.

The only way I can see that the governemnt will enforce this is link it to id cards. You must give your DNA to obtain an id card and then make it impossible to move freely around the country or even buy anything without first showing your id.

The police state is coming. I'm a cop and I don't want this.
 

The rich could just pay some soap dodger, student or illegal to turn up and give a DNA sample on their behalf, the same way they already do with speeding tickets. DNA will be the hot item on eBay.
 

The post makes some good and valid points. Especially the points about a free society.

However, if it meant that rapists, pedophiles, burglars etc were very much more likely to be caught and imprisoned then personally, I would in principle be prepared to have my DNA registered on a national database.

Freedom and civil liberties are one thing and we should not underestimate their value, but at the moment we are in danger of losing the war against violent criminals.

If technology can be used cost effectively to protect our children and families from violence then surely that is worthwhile.

I'm assuming, maybe incorrectly, that a DNA database could pay for itself by reducing the cost of catching and convicting many criminals ?
 

Could someone help me understand this?

Am I right in thinking that my DNA would be fairly similar to my parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles etc???

If so, couldn't we just take DNA from dead people? So for example, I commit a crime, my DNA is found at the scene and is matched to my grandfathers. At least it would be a head start....

It would also mean that we wouldn't all have to line up and be swabbed.
 

If the DNA database is going to be a safe as they say, Government Ministers especially Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith should be the first to have their DNA recorded on the system.
 

>I'm assuming, maybe incorrectly, that a DNA database could pay for itself by reducing the cost of catching and convicting many criminals ?

Hardly, since the pro-Gattacans like to argue that DNA just points you in the right direction, then in addition you have do all the same footwork that you'd do if they were grassed up.

How are we going to pay for jailing all the scrotes that we catch? If you you assume that the majority of them will be fined rather than jailed, then hang on - isn't the pro-Gattacan argument about catching serious criminals?

There's an argument to be made that there will be a deterrent effect in the long term, but the immediate result would (presumably) be a lot more people caught, a huge logjam in the courts, massive waits for trials, then a lottery for the few available jail places.

I'm more minded to think that the short term effect will be to increase contempt for the Criminals' Justice System beyond its current levels.

In the long term, meh, we'll all be ruled by robots anyway.
 

We currently 'detect' sufficient crimes without a full DNA database.
You get 5 years for rape (released in 2 years).
You get 4 years for manslaughter (released in 18 months).
You get 10 years for murder (out within 4 years).

What's the point in detecting any more?
Spend money on 200% more prisons. Keep these unemployed criminal thugs locked up for their rightful terms.
Only when we get sentences right NOW should be start casting the net even wider.
With this current nonsense of a sentence model put together with this DNA argument, all we'll achieve is more people sentenced with lesser terms.
Mark my words, soon - murder will equate to 18 months in prison.
I'd vote for any political party who puts 5p on income tax to build and run more prisons. I've hard enough of violent criminals evading justice in the UK!
(Guardian readers and liberals - go and buy and live in these poxy estates for ten years - then lecture me about human rights)!
 

Keith:

'We currently 'detect' sufficient crimes without a full DNA database.
You get 5 years for rape (released in 2 years).
You get 4 years for manslaughter (released in 18 months).
You get 10 years for murder (out within 4 years).'

Please someone tell me thats not true. If it is true who is starting the revolution 'cos i'm right behind you!
 

I'd just like to say this post had well constructed arguments and points that has changed my thinking in regards to a DNA base completly.
 

Most people are forensically aware due to programs like CSI and such. I am not aware of a sexual offence that I have been involved in for a number of years (8 OR 9)where DNA has identified an offender. With rape the suspect is usually known to the victim and DNA will show there has been sexual activity which no one denies anymore, the defense today being consent.
There has been a lot in the press regarding recent cases where DNA has identified an offender, in both these cases their DNA was not on file, both assuming they were too clever ever to be caught didn't take precautions, if it was on file would they have not comitted the offences or been more careful when carrying them out. I do not recall any cases recently where a stranger rapist has been identified by DNA which was already on file. Not a solid and exhaustive argument I know but worth considering.
 

I agree with the comments about building more prisons being more worthwhile and productive than DNAing 60 million mainly law abiding citizens.
However I think it is important to clear up some misapprehensions about the DNA database. It is for intelligence only ie It gives us a clue as to who may have committed a crime but an evidential sample must be taken from you when you are arrested/detained/questioned as part of the investigation. It is this sample which is analysed and used for court purposes as opposed to the non admissible intel on the database(at least that is what happens north of the border).
What actually happens is that when you are arrested for the first time and you are n't on the database,a DNA1 mouthswab is taken from you creating the record on the database. If your profile on the database is subsequently matched to a crime scene stain (blood at point of entry to a break-in, semen on a rape victim etc)a fresh evidential (DNA2) sample is obtained from you when you are taken in/nicked/huckled/jailed/detained(delete as appropriate)and used in court.This means that even if someone gives your details when they have their initial DNA1 taken the evidential (DNA2)sample will prove that the crime scene stain was not left by you. As a further back up arrested persons should be fingerprinted and photographed when they have their DNA1 taken.

The system is far from fool-proof with the most common error being somebody's record showing that their DNA is on the database when in fact it is n't. Your criminal record is marked when your DNA is taken and after it is taken a couple of times the police dont bother taking it anymore(for cost reasons). What can happen is that the police take a sample(s) and mark up your record accordingly however the sample is rejected by the lab; sample spoiled,insufficient cells taken, form wrong etc etc. This means that someone can be a serial offender but he/she will never be identified by DNA because the police believe that their profile is on file when it is n't. "It cant be Joe Bloggs even though it is his MO because there has been no hit on the database and Joe bloggs DNA is on file"

I know that this post is a bit boring and long-winded but we need to improve the quality of the debate.
In short spend the money on prisons.
 

What I say about sentences is totally true. This country has lost the plot with prison terms. Criminals get sentenced according to prison spaces, not according to their vile crimes.
In my six year police career, along with in excess of 500 detections, only three have resulted in a prison term. Those that did went inside for a matter of weeks.

Prolific career criminals take getting caught as an occupational hazzard. They see the police as 'a thorn in their side,' an inconvenience. They know full well that, even if caught, they're not looking at anything like a serious deterrant.
Probation for 12 months, community sentences, suspended jail sentences, fines that equate to a paltry few pence from their giros for two years....

It's laughable. And with the jails crowded, you just have to imagine what these convicts have done to get put inside......

We need a decent Home Secretary, a decent government and some funding in the right places.

Those that say that prison doesn't work are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
Prison doen's re-habilitate - but that's not prison's primary purpose. Their purpose is to punish, to be squalid and vile places so as not to re-offend and be put back there again. Sadly, people who are wanted are known to hand themselves in at Christmas just so that they can have a better time in December. If only they'd make prisons a truly unpleasant place to be (I don't mean cold showers, slopping out and beatings) - but no face to face visitors, no consumer gadgets and working for a living, these work shy scum would grow to detest it and behave!

It's a simple argument - like most policies, the simple ones usually work!

I'll stop moaning and just get back at dealing with the same offenders again and again knowing full well that the courts are not going to dish out proper sentences. And that's not the fault of magistrates and judges. They're as much a mere pawn in this government's micro-management as anybody else. There are only one group of losers here, and that's the decent tax paying public. When is there going to be a revolution?
 

@rogerborg:
>>How are we going to pay for jailing all the scrotes that we catch?

People in prison must work in order to pay for the cost of their keep, the cost of prosecuting them and compensation for their victims.

Would need to have safeguards in place to ensure people weren't wrongly imprisoned to create a supply of cheap labour.
 

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all. – Jacob Hornberger (1995)

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. – Edward R. Murrow

Just adding these quotes to help the debate move along.

I'd like to think we could all rely upon good old fashioned coppering, but modern tools and technologies can be enormously helpful. However, I cannot but help think that society as a whole is becoming more remote from it's police forces, some compromise must be achieved before we succumb to the database solutions.
 

If there is going to be a national DNA database. Why stop there , why be wasteful?
Add the person's voting record ( "test of true citizenship"), Tax payment records ( "national support citizenship")
And undesirable blood / matital relations - just in case ("birds of a feather test").
Stalin would like 6this
 

"A Government which assures us there are safeguards today"...

Well I remember the assurances we were given about the security of occupational pensions. Only to have a subsequent government slope shoulders when some folk lost their savings.

I agree with Rogerborg, start punishing the crooks we have already caught and convicted.

Monty
 

I cannot agree more with the section on civil liberties.

Someone will almost certainly comment to the affect that 'if your wife or father was murdered you would soon change your tune'.

This is why the saying 'hard cases make bad law' exists.

The judicial process must be exempt from emotion to keep it fair and just - thats why she has the blindfold on...
 

Prison doen's re-habilitate - but that's not prison's primary purpose. Their purpose is to punish, to be squalid and vile places so as not to re-offend and be put back there again.

I would say its primary purpose is simply to keep criminals away from law abiding people.

Socialists seem to use the fact that people re-offend after prison as a reason to use prison less and rehabilitation more.

I suggest that means that if they are going to re-offend anyway, just keep them in for their whole sentence - that way they aren't mugging people, they are burgling people's houses, they aren't doing any of the other 101 things that a scumbag gets up to.
 

>>@rogerborg:
>>How are we going to pay for jailing all the scrotes that we catch?

>@Simg
>People in prison must work in order to pay for the cost of their keep, the cost of
>prosecuting them and compensation for their victims.

Then we'd better bring the costs down by a long, long way, since I wouldn't imagine that the earning potential of a typical lag would be very high.

We might be able to make recoup some costs by shipping them off as indentured labour to third world cesspits like Burma or Alabama, but I'm sure that would give the Brussels Beardy Brigade a fit. Actually, that's a good a reason as any to do it.
 

As a serving Police Inspector, it still makes me chuckle to see that people believe that the British police could organise a "piss up in a brewery" enough to conspire against anyone using Dna! Trust me folks - we can't even get enough patrol vehicles on the streets or have a radio system that works for our Response Teams, let alone get involved in conspiracies!!
 

@rogerborg
>> Then we'd better bring the costs down by a long, long way, since I wouldn't imagine that the earning potential of a typical lag would be very high.

Hmm, good point.

How about we get Tesco's running the prison system ? (I'm only half joking )
 

Prisoners could build new prisons as they serve their sentences. Hit all your project milestones, and get time off your sentence! It would also get them teed up (perhaps I'm naive here) for a useful working life when they're released.

Alternatively, here's another idea. We outsource our call centres overseas... I'd outsource our prisons too. Somewhere like Zimbabwe perhaps, or North Korea. That would have an effect on re-offending rates, I bet!
 

There really is an enormous misconception in the UK about how bad crime was pre 1960 when the great liberal experiment started. It was a fraction of what it is today and the only reason the media portrayed every high end crime as then end of society was because it didn't happen that often. If you punish criminals and make life for them as a criminal all but impossible then those who would be so inclined to choose that life would either be persuaded against it by the threat of living permanently in a concrete cell with nothing but sewing mail bags up to look forward to, or they would rot in prison. Life for the lower classes was in no means great in those days but that was more to do with how the class system prevented people from getting jobs and wages that they would have been capable of achieving but for the fact that they came from poor families. As those lazy bastard scrotes on the news story in Peterborough showed, they would rather do sod all and sign on than earn £25k a year working for a living. Stop giving people money for nothing if they can work and put criminals in prison for substantial periods of time, that way the vast majority have a vested interest in the world around them and those who seek to leech off the rest of us either spend their lives doing hard labour in prison or actually getting off their lazy arses and getting a job so they can live.
 

IN THE NEWS TODAY:

A Budget Day strike planned by civilian workers at the Metropolitan Police and security staff at the Houses of Parliament has been called off.

(Advertisement)
Members of the Public and Commercial Services union, including community support officers, traffic wardens and 999 operators, were due to walk out for 24 hours in a row over pay.

The union called off the action after agreeing to hold fresh talks over a rejected 2.5% pay offer.


ARE THEY TAKING THE MICHAEL????
 

off topic -

just heard about the loss of Michael Todd, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police. how very sad. sympathies from chicago
 

Come off it Insp Gaget, who are you trying to kid? The public? WHY?
Couldn't organise a conspiracy eh? What rubbish! The force are masters at "conspiracy of SILENCE" regarding historical sexual abuse [and worse] committed by rogue cops. They had the DNA of TWO males for the murder of Lesley Molseed in October 1975. They convicted an innocent man. When they were given the real culprit in December 2004, it got covered up. Last year they got the 2nd man and conveniently FORGET to mention a certain ex Inspector bastard Beast, who killed her, AND my sister Lynne Whitely 1956. Don't BULLSHIT anymore please.
It's an insult.
 

Has anyoneread the latest edition of Private Eye? It carries a story about an innocent man whose life was made hell by the police, regardless of the fact that he was on the DNA database already--and he hadn't committed any crime!
Well worth the read.
 

Metcounty, one reason crime reporting was lower in the 60s and 70s was people had to wait til they got home before they called the police or find a phone box and put pennies in it, by the time they did this they realised what a load of rubbish they were complaining about and didn't bother. We now have hoards of donkeys out there with mobile phones demanding instant solutions to their problems, often calling us in haste and temper then regretting it only to find it is too late to stop the NCRS juggernaught rolling.

Anon 0143, yes I know about the DNA in 1967, you need to tell this to a wider audience.
 

9ytg...The DNA from 1967??? er, do you mean the DNA from Lesley Molseed 1975? I don't know what you mean regarding 1967. Hopefully this blog IS a "wider audience" and the press will take an interest...unless of course this disgrace for a "fairer society" government has got them all gagged.
 

If a couple of bent coppers from the 60's and a Private Eye story is the best you can do..... then Gadget is right after all.