Fewer than 1% of crimes solved using DNA database

It has been revealed that just 33,000 of the 4.9 million crimes committed in Britain each year are solved using the DNA database.

Chief Constable Chris Sims of West Midlands, the Association of Chief Police Officers' (Acpo) lead on the issue, cited the figure as he gave evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee today.

As reported by Politics.co.uk, the Home Affairs Committee were listening to the evidence of various innocent people who have had their DNA taken by the police, as well as groups such as Acpo, to evaluate the government policy on DNA rentention.  

As we have written many times before, despite the revised time-scale for removal of 6 years, the policy of holding the DNA of innocent people is a massive infringement on our personal liberty.

These latest figures prove that DNA evidence is not the silver bullet that many police officers, or indeed the Home Secretary, would have us believe.

Perhaps now our right to our own biometric data can be placed before the expediency of the state.

By Dylan Sharpe

Comments

[mark tunstill]

The rehabilitation of offenders and value for money are objectives which seem to be forgotten in this debate. Inclusion on the DNA database should be the exception rather than the rule. DNA should only be taken when a person has been sent to prison and then should only be retained for a period fixed, according to the nature and gravity of the offence, by primary legislation. That way perhaps we can have a smaller, more effective DNA database and better value for the money being spent in this area.

[guy herbert]

The statistics may be even more damning when examined carefully. It is not very clear what Sims means when he says 33,000 crimes are detected "solely or largely" through the use of the DNA database.

What does "largely" mean in this context? How large a proportion of those 33,000 cases are largely, rather than solely. The justification for the database (and its expansion) lies only in detecting suspects who would not otherwise have been associated with the crime - which would seem to be covered by "solely". If you already have a suspect, then you can check their DNA against crime scene samples directly. You don't need a national database for that.

[Intruder]

1) Spot on - ACPO is probably quoting DNA usage rather than DNA Database, and 'solely' is the only figure that could possibly justify the database.

2) Why is this figure revealed by ACPO Ltd. and not a government organization like, say, the Home Office? Why does ACPO Ltd. even have access to sensitive data? Let alone the authority to manipulate the figures before presenting them back to the govt?

[Luawaving]

I was at the HA proceedings and it would have been good if the committee *had* have heard evidence from innocent people on the database but this was not the case. Much of the evidence put forward was plain wrong or misleading and it was all a bit of a stitch up with the committee members not really knowing anything about the database and Chris Sims/ACPO revealing that he had been emailed the list of questions before-hand, unlike any other participant (that we know of). David TC Davies (Con)declared that he wanted to add his DNA to the database and so should every other law abiding citizen and insisted that the reason there were more young black men on the database was because they commit more crime - a prejudice shown to be incorrect by recent home office research, in between sighing and stomping in and out the room like a truculent teenager. I think what the HA committee did do was reflect well the uninformed dabate around the DNA database from its beginning.

[No Charge No DNA]

Please contribute to the House Of Commons Home Affairs Committee inquiry into the National DNA Database, send your views, comments, evidence, to the Committee in a word or rich text document format as an attachment to the email, homeaffcom@parliament.uk
details on how to submit written evidence can be found here http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/witness.cfm
for further info about the NDNAD go to http://www.genewatch.org