One of the UK’s head terrorism officers has instructed officers not to abuse anti-terror stop and search legislation unless for ‘a very good reason’. His comments follow a series of high profile complaints by journalists and activists who are being labelled ‘domestic extremists’ to justify abusing their human rights legitimate protest.
Up until then police had avoided mass scrutiny as tourists and innocent members of the public, especially the African community, were being harassed by abusive police officers seeking to flaunt their authority without adhering to protocols providing mechanisms of accountability.
In August 2009 campaign group Genewatch reported that almost one in four African children over 10 have had their profiles placed on the police DNA database. The massive increase in DNA retention figures occurred when the government in April 2004 enabled police forces to remove DNA samples from anyone arrested for a recordable offence before they were charged. Previously, they were regarded innocent until proven guilty and police had to wait until offenders were charged with a crime.
This loop hole has been greatly exploited by the police as a recent report by the government advisory body the Human Genetics Commission (HGC) revealed over three-quarters of young African men in the UK have their DNA stored on the police national database (NDNAD). These alarming statistics became public as police forces across the UK faced severe criticism after a former police superintendent admitted to there being an official policy of unlawfully arresting people just in order to obtain their DNA. Stop and search has been identified as the primary tool enabling rouge officers to criminalise innocent African people (including children) and mask racist policy and professional misconduct.
In an article published by the Guardian newspaper, Matilda MacAttram, community worker and director of Black Mental Health UK (BMH UK) wrote; ‘This Labour government introduced the DNA database in 1999 as a resource for the police to keep the genetic profile of those who have been convicted of a crime. A decade later we see that almost every black family in the UK is on the database.’
Due to the fact that DNA is unique (with the exception of identical twins), analysis of DNA evidence collected from a crime scene can implicate or eliminate suspects, it is also open to abuse by incompetent police investigators and can be abused to create suspects of those not on the database through comparisons with DNA taken from relatives.
Police chiefs and various politicians in support of the practice continue to launch a sustained media offensive repeatedly claiming the seizure of DNA from innocent bystanders is a useful asset in the detection of crime. The Home Office has defended the database retention of children’s DNA profiles claiming “Before a person’s profile can be added to it, the person must have been arrested for a recordable offence. That is a significant threshold.”
However both this and the facetious “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide” approach were exposed as vacuous strategies as official figures reveal that the number of crimes solved using DNA have fallen whilst children are being criminalised by racist police officers.
A national newspaper reported that “for the past six years the number of crimes solved using DNA evidence has remained static at between 0.34 and 0.36 per cent - about one in 300 of all recorded crimes... Over the same period the number of people’s whose identity was on the national DNA database more than doubled in size from 1.9million people to 4.1million.”
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has also revealed that the “[African] men are about four times more likely than [european] men to have their DNA profiles stored on the police NDNAD.”
But the EHRC alongside the Independent Police complaints Commission (IPCC) have both earned reputations as being government funded quangos that whilst begrudgingly willing to raise related issues when pressed by public pressure, are wholly ineffective as well as incompetent when it comes to addressing these concerns that fall directly under their remit.
The British government’s has refused to adhere to a landmark European Court of Human Rights ruling against it’s DNA retention programme. Instead the government will keep both “fingerprints and DNA profiles of those arrested but not convicted of any offence for six to 12 years.”
Toyin Agbetu of the pan African, human rights organisation, Ligali says;
“There is too much evidence proving that the authorities remain unwilling to address their abuse of human rights and creeping curtailment of civil liberties. This situation will continue to occur until first, our media works collaboratively to expose this rampant daily abuse of state power and secondly, when those some of us elected into these authoritative positions face strong organised opposition - not from other politicians looking to score brownie points with the electorate, but instead from the target of their oppression – the people themselves. There must be consequences when the hand that feeds is bitten else we are all guilty of being collaborators of neo-facism”
Malcolm X: A Problem of Human Rights
External Links
Racist bias blamed for disparity in police DNA databaseThe DNA database betrays the racism of those behind itCrimes solved by DNA evidence fall despite millions being added to databaseHuman Rights Day sees community reflect on governments discriminatory DNA policyRebranding protest as extremism
Police illegally obtaining DNA to create pre-crime suspects
Up until then police had avoided mass scrutiny as tourists and innocent members of the public, especially the African community, were being harassed by abusive police officers seeking to flaunt their authority without adhering to protocols providing mechanisms of accountability.
In August 2009 campaign group Genewatch reported that almost one in four African children over 10 have had their profiles placed on the police DNA database. The massive increase in DNA retention figures occurred when the government in April 2004 enabled police forces to remove DNA samples from anyone arrested for a recordable offence before they were charged. Previously, they were regarded innocent until proven guilty and police had to wait until offenders were charged with a crime.
This loop hole has been greatly exploited by the police as a recent report by the government advisory body the Human Genetics Commission (HGC) revealed over three-quarters of young African men in the UK have their DNA stored on the police national database (NDNAD). These alarming statistics became public as police forces across the UK faced severe criticism after a former police superintendent admitted to there being an official policy of unlawfully arresting people just in order to obtain their DNA. Stop and search has been identified as the primary tool enabling rouge officers to criminalise innocent African people (including children) and mask racist policy and professional misconduct.
In an article published by the Guardian newspaper, Matilda MacAttram, community worker and director of Black Mental Health UK (BMH UK) wrote; ‘This Labour government introduced the DNA database in 1999 as a resource for the police to keep the genetic profile of those who have been convicted of a crime. A decade later we see that almost every black family in the UK is on the database.’
Due to the fact that DNA is unique (with the exception of identical twins), analysis of DNA evidence collected from a crime scene can implicate or eliminate suspects, it is also open to abuse by incompetent police investigators and can be abused to create suspects of those not on the database through comparisons with DNA taken from relatives.
From unlawful arrest to: DNA sample being taken
Criminalised by racist police officers
Police chiefs and various politicians in support of the practice continue to launch a sustained media offensive repeatedly claiming the seizure of DNA from innocent bystanders is a useful asset in the detection of crime. The Home Office has defended the database retention of children’s DNA profiles claiming “Before a person’s profile can be added to it, the person must have been arrested for a recordable offence. That is a significant threshold.”However both this and the facetious “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide” approach were exposed as vacuous strategies as official figures reveal that the number of crimes solved using DNA have fallen whilst children are being criminalised by racist police officers.
A national newspaper reported that “for the past six years the number of crimes solved using DNA evidence has remained static at between 0.34 and 0.36 per cent - about one in 300 of all recorded crimes... Over the same period the number of people’s whose identity was on the national DNA database more than doubled in size from 1.9million people to 4.1million.”
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has also revealed that the “[African] men are about four times more likely than [european] men to have their DNA profiles stored on the police NDNAD.”
But the EHRC alongside the Independent Police complaints Commission (IPCC) have both earned reputations as being government funded quangos that whilst begrudgingly willing to raise related issues when pressed by public pressure, are wholly ineffective as well as incompetent when it comes to addressing these concerns that fall directly under their remit.
The British government’s has refused to adhere to a landmark European Court of Human Rights ruling against it’s DNA retention programme. Instead the government will keep both “fingerprints and DNA profiles of those arrested but not convicted of any offence for six to 12 years.”
Toyin Agbetu of the pan African, human rights organisation, Ligali says;
“There is too much evidence proving that the authorities remain unwilling to address their abuse of human rights and creeping curtailment of civil liberties. This situation will continue to occur until first, our media works collaboratively to expose this rampant daily abuse of state power and secondly, when those some of us elected into these authoritative positions face strong organised opposition - not from other politicians looking to score brownie points with the electorate, but instead from the target of their oppression – the people themselves. There must be consequences when the hand that feeds is bitten else we are all guilty of being collaborators of neo-facism”
Malcolm X: A Problem of Human Rights
External Links
Racist bias blamed for disparity in police DNA databaseThe DNA database betrays the racism of those behind itCrimes solved by DNA evidence fall despite millions being added to databaseHuman Rights Day sees community reflect on governments discriminatory DNA policyRebranding protest as extremism
Ligali is not responsible for the content of third party sites
Police illegally obtaining DNA to create pre-crime suspects
Speak Out!
Click here to speak out or read (1) comments about this articleOfficial figures reveal that the number of crimes solved using DNA have fallen whilst African children are still being criminalised by racist police officers.
See Related:
Get involved and help change our world