DNA database plans for children who ‘could become criminals’

[Guest guest]

This is in England, but scary stuff. If it happens one

place, it could set a precedent............Lynn

DNA database plans for children who ‘could become

criminals’

 

March 18,

2008

 

Telegraph | Mar 18, 2008

By Simon Johnson

Primary school children should be put on the national DNA database if

their behaviour suggests they will become criminals, a senior Scotland

Yard expert said yesterday.

Gary Pugh, the director of forensic science and the new DNA spokesman

for the Association of Chief Police Officers, called for a debate on the

measures required to identify future offenders.

He said: “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.

“We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to

society.”

But critics said this was a step towards a police state that would risk

stigmatising youngsters who had yet to commit a criminal act.

The details of more than 4.5 million people, including about 150,000

children under the age of 16, are held on the Government’s database,

making it the largest system of its kind in the world.

Last week it emerged that the number of 10 to 18-year-olds placed on the

database after being arrested will have reached about 1.5 million this

time next year.

Police in England and Wales need parental consent to take a DNA sample

from children under 10, the age of criminal responsibility.

Children in Scotland can be charged with an offence at eight, but police

cannot take DNA if they are younger.

Julia Margo, from the Institute for Public Policy Research who wrote a

recent report on the issue, agreed that it was possible to identify risk

factors in children aged five to seven. But she said that placing young

children on a database risked stigmatising them.

Chris Davis, of the National Primary Headteachers’ Association, said Mr

Pugh’s suggestion could be viewed “as a step towards a police

state.”

He added: “It is condemning them at a very young age to something they

have not yet done. To label children at that stage and put them on a

register is going too far.”

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