OK, I like to think I have the customary level of middle-class angst
about recycling, littering and so on, but this is getting ridiculous.
A Home Office consultation report apparently says that respondents "welcomed the ability to reduce the threshold, including to the extent
of allowing for the taking of fingerprints, DNA and footwear
impressions for non-recordable offenses for the purpose of offender
identification and searching databases".
Who the hell are they consulting?
The logic here defies analysis.
First, there's the notion that if a police officer spots you littering, they need to establish your identity to a degree which only a DNA sample can satisfy. Second, there's the implication that if you're caught speeding, the existing dvier and vehicle-based credentials are similarly insufficient to prove your identity. If that's the case, I look forward to challenging my next speeding ticket on grounds of mistaken identity.
Then there's the idea of searching the databases for someone who has just
committed a non-recordable offense. Either the assumption is that
people who commit one non-recordable offence (such as littering) commit
other non-recordable offences... which a trawl of the databases is,
let's face it, unlikely to reveal, or the assumption is that people who
litter also commit recordable offences such as burglary, rape, arson
and the like. So much for the presumption of innocence, but then, we
knew that had been ditched a while back anyway.
Then
there's the implicit idea that DNA, fingerprints and footprints
are more or less equivalent as a means of identifying someone who the
police stop in the street. Wuh? Are they trying to imply that all
villains own only one pair of shoes? Does the name 'Imelda Marcos' mean
nothing to them?
To complete the Catch-22 scenario, I assume that if you decline to give a DNA sample for littering, you will be arrested for obstructing the police in the course of their duties, and a sample required on that basis.
The Guardian's article
cites Baroness Kennedy's comment that, once your DNA sample is on the
database it is increasingly difficult to have it removed. Bear in mind
that the threshold has already been lowered in several significant ways:
1) All offences are now arrestable offences.
2) The police may require you to give a DNA sample if you are a witness to a crime, as opposed to a suspect or even a victim.
3) Being acquitted of a crime will not, by default, result in your DNA data being removed from the database.
Isn't it time the proportionality of this whole approach was challenged in the courts?
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