Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert.
Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.
OK, let’s have a debate. Let’s debate how many 5 year olds showing “offending traits” actually go on to commit crime. Let’s debate how many criminals didn’t show “offending traits” at 5 years old. What, we don’t know? Of course we don’t know, we’re too busy running around slapping everyone into the database to actually think about alternatives!
There are more ppl in the database in this country than in any other in europe at least:
There are currently 4.5 million genetic samples on the UK database – the largest in Europe – but police believe more are required to reduce crime further. ‘The number of unsolved crimes says we are not sampling enough of the right people,’ Pugh told The Observer.
Excuse me, Mr Pugh, but I think it means you’re just getting it wrong. I think you are relying on slapping all and sundry into your database and giving up on the idea of prevention or detection. You might not be sampling enough of the right ppl, but you’ve surely got way too many of the wrong ppl, and it should be possible for ppl, children especially, to have these records removed.
As I’m going to be a teacher, how would I feel about being involved in spotting “offending traits”? I think what I’d be trying to do is help the child move away from them, rather than assuming that a 5 year old has their fate cast in stone and is going to be damned for life. Surely that’s what as a society we should be doing – working out why these traits come about, whether they really lead to committing crimes in later life, and what we can do to help the children concerned, rather than just slapping them in a database and waiting for it to go wrong? Maybe we should just go one step further and lock them up at age 5?
Honestly, don’t these ppl think at all??? :wall
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