Put young children on DNA list, urge police (UK)

[tpsbmam]

Source: Guardian UK

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.

'If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,' said Pugh. 'You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won't. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.'

Pugh admitted that the deeply controversial suggestion raised issues of parental consent, potential stigmatisation and the role of teachers in identifying future offenders, but said society needed an open, mature discussion on how best to tackle crime before it took place. 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. However, he said the notion of universal sampling - everyone being forced to give their genetic samples to the database - is currently prohibited by cost and logistics.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/16/youthjustice.children/print

[closeupready]

1. This raises a lot of larger concerns about how big government should be allowed to grow.

Because this smacks of totalitarianism. I would not be in favor of this in the US.

[lovuian]

2. at 5 years old you can tell a criminal Thats absolute MADNESS

this DNA data base scares the hell out of me

[better tomorrow]

7. not any worse than the biometric fingerprint at DisneyWorld.....

or the photograhps on some of the rides.....we are probably in more databases already than we know.....

[Posteritatis]

15. Disney's coercive powers are rather less than Britain's. (nt)

[lligrd]

3. Holy Chit

Downright scary.

[McCamy Taylor]

4. Crock of shit.

[girl gone mad]

5. Brits never cease to amaze me..

with the human rights they are willing to squander in the name of personal safety.

[neweurope]

6. They're really loosing it now. Holy Shit!

Let children gow up in the knowledge that they are be potential criminals - just great! A general sampling of DNA is a horrible idea. That scares me very much. And Britain is in the EU...

:scared:


---------------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[woundedkarma]

8. wow... I love how experts can be so stupid and

how the government is even worse.

I would bet however that the experts probably say nothing of the sort and that someone has taken data and spun it how they want and there you go. That's usually how these things are.

Ignoring a WHOLE LOT of problems with the idea... if you start targeting someone and saying they have the potential to be a criminal, YOU WILL MAKE THEM INTO A CRIMINAL. It is that simple. They will become resentful, distrustful. It's self-fulfilling.

You won't stop crime by doing this. What you will do is destroy many people's lives simply because you're afraid of what MIGHT happen SOME DAY.

[better tomorrow]

9. they will use the criminal and behavior idea to get pawns...

but what they REALLY want is to identify the BLUEBLOODS.....and extend racial profiling.

[intaglio]

10. I - Hate - This

and always you hear the argument that "If you do nothing wrong you have nothing to fear"

Which is complete and utter Bollocks!

It is actually the reverse because of false positives and other, extremely rare, sample problems. Then there is the paternity issue, which goes like this; child is sampled, there is DNA found at a crime scene which partially matches the childs DNA showing that the child's father is "in the frame", child's father is tested but does not match because he is not the child's father ...

[JeanGrey]

11. This is why we should all watch government closely and not

allow it to get beyond a certain point................because they "might" become criminals later in life? I've heard some stupid stuff before but takes the FCAKE....................I'm amazed they are stupid enough to actually say this in public. Teachers to identify future criminals? Pray tell how can they do that - no offense but teachers have enough trouble teaching!

[Javaman]

12. 1984. nt

[Freedom Train]

13. Absolutely sickening

And this is only part of the bigger picture in that nation. The UK is already so far down the road towards full-blown big-brother authoritarianism that I fear nothing short of a total societal revolution will put a stop to it - and with everyone seeming so complacent about what's happening around them I don't see much of a chance of that happening.

[Peace Patriot]

14. Yeah, and you can TURN children INTO criminal adults by TREATING them like

criminals! Good God!

This has NOTHING to do with preventing crime. NOTHING! This is about investing the state with ARBITRARY fascist powers with which to terrorize and silence dissent, while global corporate predators steal all the resources on the planet, and turn the world's people into a slave labor work force. This is about fear and control. Of all the sick proposals of the sick fucks who are running things, this is one of the most outrageous I've heard of.

DNA can no more predict human behavior than the Pope in the Vatican can. Tag children with DNA-crime from birth, and they WILL become a permanent "criminal" underclass and they WILL fill the "prison-industrial complex" with lucrative bodies, and they WILL fill the armies with cannon fodder. And you can bet on the REAL criminals, the BIG criminals, the mass murderers and master thieves--the Bushes and the Blairs and the owners and the fatcats and robber barons--never getting tagged, and never getting caught, for their REAL crimes, as they stamp computer chips into the flesh of the children of the poor, branding them as "criminals."

[Gormy Cuss]

16. If you have nothing to hide, what's the problem?

The subject line was sarcasm, but unless and until we have laws preventing such behavior it's only going to get more intrusive. This is a UK story, but if it's hailed as a big success there we'll have DHS chirping about how wonderful it would be to have that law enforcement tool here too.