Burbage

Technically the police or some other body would manage the data. In the same way that the NHS manages medical record data. Both are funded by the government. If you feel that the NHS (or Medicare for that matter) is secure from the government, why would the Police be less secure? I was merely assuming that your opinion was that the police were as likely to give data to the government as the NHS. It's not my opinion. I think the database would be as secure from the government as medical records.

As for being perfect, they could make it perfect for ID by adding a few more markers. This is known, and has been the case for years. The reason it is not done is because the system is good enough and to add more markers would make the testing and the compiling of the database more expensive. The biggest legal arguments over DNA are about contamination, not the accuracy of the result.

I started out saying it could be used for paternity testing. But it would be pointless since that service is already commercially available. It is useless for anything else.

However picking at these irrelevent points is not going to change the facts any more than disproving thehteory of gravity is going to cause Earth to shoot off into outer space. There is a place for opinion. But opinion cannot change fact.

DeanCM

If you know where the murderer has been you will be able to collect enough DNA to amplify a profile. Unless the murderer wears an environment suit, which would make committing the murder pretty difficult. presumably in some rare cases a murderer will actually be able to do this.

The best method to avoid detection used to be to contaminate the scene with DNA from other people, but new methods have been developed to disassociate results.

Of course, if you can't pinpoint the location of the criminal DNA is not the best way to pursue the investigation.

Increasing detection will reduce crimes, not eliminate them. With sex offenders and serial killers there is little point worrying about deterrence, they are driven by different things. But with a DNA database the Yorkshire Ripper would have been nailed after his first killing.

In fact, with a good enough DNA fingerprint database you could probably work out who Jack the Ripper was. How about that as the subject of a novel.

A DNA database is not going to reduce crime to nothing, but it will cause many criminals to alter their opinion about their chances of being caught. DNA has never been used to convict someone in the absence of any other evidence, as far as I know. But it has several times been the clincher, on top of other evidence.

In fact I think you'll find that DNA evidence has highlighted a large number of bad convictions. Something I'm sure the police wouldn't be too pleased about.

If you are ever in court defending yourself against something you didn't do, DNA is your friend. Believe me. TV and popular opinion aside. Real courts do not just convict someone solely on the basis of DNA fingerprinting.

Deancm

Or unless the murder has been done remotely.

Burbage

Or the murder was committed using a car, then it becomes a traffic accident. There are many possibilities where DNA fingerprinting will not be useful. But there are many where it will be useful.

Deancm

Much easier to catch someone using other forensic techniques with a car though. Too much information left behind.

MartinLuther

Now we're getting there.

As for medical records. The NHS were not guardians of medical records when I left the UK (maybe they are now). Medicare are not the guardians of medical records here; they are the guardians of Medicare records.

Burbage

Whichever. It is not me that is concerned about the government misusing a DNA fingerprint database, you are the one with that problem. I have no concerns on that score at all. Firstly because I don't think the database will be open to abuse in the same way that medical records are kept secure (so I differ from all you cons on this, although I have no idea how secure the medical record database is, or the DNA fingerprint database would be), and secondly because the database would be no use for anything other than identification anyway. So the point is irrelevant.

In terms of accuracy: The database would be used to narrow down the search for a perpetrator. Once the small number of suspects is found in the unlikely event that other evidence doesn't establish who is guilty, it is possible to compare tham by either different tests or more extensive tests to the DNA left at the crime scene. The prosecution then has to prove that that person was in that room at the time of the crime, and that the DNA didn't get there some other way. Then the prosecution has to prove that the person actually committed the crime. Greater accuracy is not required of the database.

MartinLuther

Whichever!

It's almost as if I was the one who brought it up.

Wol

I would put just the opposite slant on this!

In a perfect world there would be no crime. In a slightly less perfect one, having commited a crime the perpetrator would walk into a police station and confess.

Since we're not in anything remotely approaching a perfect world, IMO society needs to use every scientific method that becomes available to apprehend criminals and terrorists, preferably before they commit their crimes. If this means surveillance cameras or DNA records so be it. As I said before, if the will to make a police state is there, lack of such methods wouldn't stop it happening.

Deancm

No, they only have to prove that the defendant committed the crime beyond reasonable doubt, so there is a margin in there for error.

Deancm

can't argue with that.

Exactly! And you would put faith in the powers that be to handle this kind of information honestly and responsibly? I don't have that much faith in humanity. Call me cynical.

Pro-active Policing is one thing but there is a basic human right that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Surveillance cameras or DNA records won't prevent crime or be a deterrent. The UK alone has 20% of the worlds CCTV cameras and that hasn't done any good in reducing crime.

The next thing we will be all be walking around with microchips/GPS under the skin and the govt/Police will be tracking our every movement. Would you be prepared to submit to that if it reduced crime?

Wol

Deancm: we can't expect to win any battle against the nasties with hands tied behind our backs, and we live in a very dangerous time when there are ever more nasties of all colour - from random bashings by drunks to full scale Islamic terrorists. I would prefer to live without any surveillance etc but I am prepared to put up with the things we are talking about if it makes us safer.

Deancm

Therein lies the irony. These measures will not make us any safer. Better off getting a dog.

Wol

If they don't then they should not be used. But I don't think either you or I are really in a position to say one way or the other.

renth

I don't think it's any worse than 10, 20, 30 years ago - just more panic in the media, there's always been drunken brawls, stabbings, IRA etc...

Deancm

I agree. The media are fear mongers. Sensationalism sells. And actually, if you look at the crime stats there is very little difference.