dna

[AliFlump]

Just heard a piece on the news about how they have a large database of DNA which they can use to catch criminals. This gave me a thought, why dont they take a DNA sample from every new born baby, put this on a database then, when DNA is found on a crime scene (or anywhere else) they will know instantly who it is.

I know this would take alot of doing and probably cost alot of money but surely people would think twice about commiting a crime if they knew they could be instantly caught and it would save alot of investigation time.

There may be a few flaws to get over but im sure you all get my theory

[OBonio]

I'm sure this will happen eventually anyway.

But what happened to being innocent until proven guilty? Also, the system could be open to abuse. And DNA matching still isn't 100% accurate I didn't think.

Could I plant someone else's DNA at the scene of a crime? Very easily I would expect.

[AliFlump]

Thats fair enough OBonio, one of the flaws i mentioned, but even if someone did plant DNA at the scene it would have to be someone close to them so it might lead them in the correct direction.

[brachiopod]

And why not tattoo us with a barcode on our foreheads and insert a satellite-trackable microship under our skin while they're about it?

[AliFlump]

If you do nothing wrong brachiopod you have nothing to fear, (cept the planting evidence thing)

i was just trying to introduce an idea which might bring down the crime levels

[Dolly1308]

I'm with you Ali ,don't do wrong and you've nothing to fear .

[charliebaps]

I can understand your point Ali but it surely must the start of a slippery slope. I am a law abiding person but certainly do not want the very fabric of my physical being kept by the police. I love the fact we don't have ID cards and to have DNA on record takes away part of my freedom - a baby can not say yes or no to having a sample taken

[OBonio]

'If you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear'.

Apart from maybe, just maybe, the system not working and you getting banged away for a crime you didn't commit (sounds like the A-Team....). If you're not afraid of that, then you're a bigger person than me.

[gary baldy]

I would feel uncomfortable to
a) offering up an innocent new born baby to a dna sampling - what sort of start in life is that "Welcome to world and now can we have some of your dna just in case you do something wrong a few years down the line" - it is almost condemning the poor thing.
and b) once a third party has your dna what is to say it cannot be used for other things - and no i'm not a paranoid conspiracy theorist , i would just rather have the option as an adult to give up my dna if i felt it was the right thing to do and not done against my wishes the minute i'm born.

[WaldoMcFroog]

Another issue is the potential misue of that data for eugenics. To take an extremely emotive and extreme example, imagine if Hitler had had a database of everyone in Germany's DNA!

The film Gattaca deals with some of the issues raised by your proposed system and might give food for thought. I appreciate you're not advocating that the database is made available to all and is just used for crime resolution purposes, but isn't this a slippery slope?

[jake-the-peg]

If the "If you've done nothg wrong you've nothing to fear" rule worked we wouldn't need a court of appeal would we?

[AliFlump]

All of your posts do make me think, i didnt mean the database should be made available to all.

All i was saying was that the police already have a database of DNA ( from convicted criminals i believe correct me if im wrong) so if these people commit a crime again they have their DNA on record and can see straight away that they have done wrong again

Yes, i do know that these people are criminals and not innocents like i was proposing and i understand the problems that could occur but just thought it would give the police a place to start

Perhaps it shouldn't be taken from babies but from adults although the reason i said babies was because an adult can say no if they have done something wrong a baby cant.

[DavidUK]

"If you do nothing wrong ... you have nothing to fear". How incredibly naive AliFlump and Dolly1308. Throughout history there have been people who have done nothing wrong except disagree with their political leaders and they have had much to fear.

The reduction of civil liberties in the US, with us in the UK following the same path, should make us all scared. What about the old man who was man-handled out of the Labour Party Conference? Or the woman who has now got a criminal record because she read out a list of names outside Parliament?

[Oneeyedvic]

The police DNA list has nothing to do with 'convicted' criminals. If you have simply been arrested and they want to take your dna, you have no choice and it will go onto the database.

You may feel that this government is responisble enough to have a database like this (personally I don't) but what about the government in 20 years time?

And I'm sorry but thinking that if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear is simply laughable.

[AliFlump]

OK we'll dismiss the idea and let incidents of violent crime get higher, let more murders be unsolved, let rapists never be caught etc etc.

The whole point of my idea was to help prevent these things happening as the punishments that the government are dishing out now dont work.

Surely someone would think twice about doing a crime if they thought they might be caught easily.

I know that there are flaws in the idea as i first stated but surely more crimes like rape would be solved with something like this set up

[Loosehead]

As unlikely and indeed somewhat disturbing as it seems I agree with Waldo and Gary et al.

The presence of DNA just proves you where there (I'll cover foul play in a mo) it does not show that you did the crime. I just do not trust the authorities with this power, ditto ID cards. You see the maxim "You have nothing to fear if you are innocent" is I'm afraid flawed and I am at the moment going through an action that reinforces this and generally the authorities always believe you are lying unless there is evidence to the contrary. There are lots of cases where someone's DNA may be present but purely for innocent reasons. Not to mention the scope for misuse. Someone could easily plant DNA from someone else at a crime scene to deflect blame or merely to cause the state to hunt the wrong person, the possibilities are endless.

[AliFlump]

Fair enought Loosehead i get your point, thanks for presenting the other side of the arguement without being patronising.

[LazyGun]

"if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear" as an argument is a huge jump in the direction of a police state.

I find the governments intrusion into my life at the moment more than sufficient thanks very much.

Patrick McGoohan said it best.... I am not a number, I am a free man ;)

[gary baldy]

If the id card scheme gets the go ahead we will not be far off anyway as one option is to include bio metric information on the new id cards - its not a huge leap to a dna database.

[qapmoc]

I don't know why you worry so much about ID cards, I live in a country where everybody over 18 years old has to have an ID card and this has been the case for about 25 years now.
Nobody even thinks about it, the card is used for any larger legal transaction or HP agreement etc... or when buying a car or a house or whatever.
For things like buying a house etc... all the buyers/sellers attach a photocopy of their ID card's to the documents. It is very usefull for preventing fraud.
Some people even use them as a sort of term security and leave them with a local shopkeeper to pay for something later.
The police almost never ask anybody to produce it unless there is a reason for it, it works very well and causes no problems at all (unless you lose it!!)

[Drisgirl]

What happened to the lovely feeling of freedom and not having a Nanny State.Its sad we are even debating this.I'm not having a go really.

Anyway Celeb Big Brother starts tomorrow :)