BBC Reality Check: Do CCTV and DNA db make us safer?

Doctor_Wibble · **Joined:** Tue, 11 Apr 2006 13:02:46 +0000 **Posts:** 2850

Here => Do CCTV and the DNA database make us safer?
I'm not particularly convinced that this article is entirely balanced though it might just be the way I'm reading it.
DNA bit starts halfway down.

Quote:

Crime-fighting v civil liberties

On DNA there is a real difference between the parties and it is hard to argue with Labour's claim that the Conservative proposal will restrict the police's ability to fight crime.

But this is all about a balance between crime-fighting and civil liberties - something the Conservative Party feels very strongly about.

[...]

Labour wants to go on keeping (for a limited time) the DNA profiles of people arrested on suspicion of a crime, even if they are not eventually convicted.

This has widespread police support. It irritates the police that such people are described as "innocent", even though they are innocent in the eyes of the law. But detectives say some of them will eventually turn out to be repeat offenders so keeping their DNA profiles will help catch them in the future.

In contrast, the Conservatives say that people who have been cleared should not stay on the database. They accept that some crimes might go unsolved as a result, but say the rights of innocent people outweigh that.

Andrew Watson · **Posted:** Thu, 29 Apr 2010 06:32:03 +0000

You're right, it's biased.

Quote:

it is hard to argue with Labour's claim that the Conservative proposal will restrict the police's ability to fight crime

Actually, it's very easy to argue that adding 1m innocent people's profiles to the database has not improved its effectiveness as a crime-fighting tool - because that's exactly what's happened.

See: http://www.genewatch.org/uploads/f03c6d ... Q_A_v3.doc

In the two years since this Genewatch note was written, the number of retained profiles of innocent people has continued to expand, to around 1 million, yet the DNA detection rate still remains stubbornly fixed at 0.37%.

NO2ID

BBC Reality Check: Do CCTV and DNA db make us safer?

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