ACPO – Totalitarian at Heart

ACPO, an uncountable quango paid for by us without consent is an irredeemably totalitarian organisation. Despite having been told that the DNA of innocents should not be kept, they keep banging the drum in the hope that someone, somewhere will dance to their totalitarian beat.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has warned ministers this week that adopting the Scottish model for DNA retention will decrease the level of public protection.

Speaking at the Protection of Freedoms Bill Committee on March 22, Chris Sims, ACPO lead for forensics, said that under new government proposals, around 1,000 DNA matches would be lost per year.

Sigh… There is no need for the police to have innocent people’s DNA, because –  and wait for it… they are innocent. Therefore, not having this DNA on the database will have no effect whatsoever on crime detection -and it will not, absolutely not, despite the scare mongering, “decrease the level of public protection”. What a piece of rank idiocy wrapped up as caring , sharing, all for our own good cotton wool cockwaffle this is. We are better protected if these people don’t have access to our DNA –  except in specific circumstances during a specific investigation. Otherwise it’s irrelevant; they don’t need it and shouldn’t have it.

I did like this little snippet, though:

He added that it was impossible to predict what type of offences would be affected, but that serious cases would undoubtedly be included.

Translated into the English language the rest of us are familiar with, that’s “we don’t know”. Indeed, they have absolutely no idea. They like the idea of DNA retention and will use any disreputable argument that comes into their heads to try and justify it. Fear of the bogeyman will usually suffice.

Police Professional understands that the new proposals have been tested to see how many matches from crime scenes might not be made once the legislation is enacted. From one month’s results, between two and four per cent of matches would not be made. Concerns exist that this equates to a large number when extrapolated and would include serious offenders who would no longer be identified.

Sounds scary, doesn’t it? But note the use of the weasel word there; might. “matches might not be made”. And “concerns exist”. Well big fat hairy deal. I don’t give a stuff about what concerns exist. I care that the police do their job and abide by the law, which includes not keeping the DNA of innocent people on file. And using scare stories to try and influence government decisions is not their job. They don’t know that matches will be missed. They cannot possibly know and their “research” is based upon the assumption that people on the DNA database are actually guilty, rather than innocent.

The Government is proposing adopting the Scottish model for DNA retention which sees the DNA of anyone charged or arrested being kept on a database for three years before it is destroyed. After three years the police can apply for a court order to allow the DNA to be kept for a further two years.

This is deliberately misleading. The Scottish model refers to people who are charged –  but not convicted. If you are not convicted then in law, you are innocent. We have this quaint concept in the UK of innocent until proven guilty. Maybe ACPO would like to dispense with all that messy legal stuff such as trials and examining the evidence and juries and such and move swiftly from the charge to being banged up and DNA held for life. That is effectively what they are positing here. People on the system are actually guilty but got away with it and will commit a crime later on, so we need to keep tabs on them.

No, no, no. Unless the person has been tried by a jury of their peers and found guilty then there is no reason to keep their DNA on the database. You cannot assume that because they have been charged there is reason to presume guilt and keep the DNA. That way leads to totalitarianism.

Mr Sims also raised concerns about the rhetoric of innocent people being removed from the database. He argued that such rhetoric implied that the DNA database was about punishment when in fact it is about forward-looking protection to the wider public.

It is not about “forward-looking protection for the public”. It is about control freakery and innocent people most certainly should not be on it.

The issue of DNA retention is being seen as a balance between liberties and security, according to Mr Sims, but he said that the balance was a political issue not one that concerned the police service.

Now that’s genuinely funny…