Gardai get powers to collect DNA

the_syco

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gardai-get-new-powers-to-collect-dna-from-bodies-26593351.html

GARDAI will be given new powers that will allow them to take samples from deceased people, irrespective of the cause of death, if they believe it will help a criminal investigation.

Gardai will also have the power to target jailed offenders, who have completed their sentences but are not already on the database and continue to be of interest to the force.

So, this will be nice. Esp if this gets through;

A debate on the legal obstacles to a database has been ongoing since the 1990s and has been painfully slow in reaching a conclusion. The new bill was due to have been published earlier this year but was put on hold because of a judgment in the British courts. The Marper judgment meant that persons who are not convicted must be treated differently from offenders.

Long term, having such a database will hopefully allow the Gardaí to find who did what quicker.

Potential-Monke

All we need to do now is set up an Agreement with Apple and we'll have all the fingerprints too!

But i was always a believer in a DNA database, and think DNA should be held on file from birth. I can understand the potential reasons why it shouldn't, but with proper security i can't see it as a problem, especially in this country.

voter1983

given that this legislation was only recently published how long will we be waiting before it's introduced?

IRLConor

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I can understand the potential reasons why it shouldn't

The biggest reason against collecting DNA from everybody is the false positive rate. You still need other solid evidence. DNA matching is good, but it's not magic. Muddying the waters by getting tens or hundreds of matches on every search won't help you much.

Sign up for something like 23 and me and you'll see how close you match to people totally unrelated to you.

meathstevie

IRLConor wrote: »

The biggest reason against collecting DNA from everybody is the false positive rate. You still need other solid evidence. DNA matching is good, but it's not magic. Muddying the waters by getting tens or hundreds of matches on every search won't help you much.

Sign up for something like 23 and me and you'll see how close you match to people totally unrelated to you.

In all fairness if you look at our closest neighbours, the UK including Northern Ireland, you can't but conclude that DNA collecting in the criminal investigation system is very widespread but also that judges are quite reluctant to rely on DNA evidence only ( see the Massareene Barracks shootings and Lord Justice Hart's criticisms on forensic delays and weariness of over reliance on just DNA evidence ).

Also, forensic DNA testing of evidential value is quite likely of a more stringent nature than an of the shelf kit that promises to give you health advice etc etc...from the very start in Police custody and at crime scenes serious effort goes into the prevention of contamination and evidentially sound recording and tracking of all sample movements is applied. The least little hick up in the collecting process and sample administration will give any barrister worth his money an opportunity to get the evidence disregarded by the courts and rightly so.

IRLConor

meathstevie wrote: »

In all fairness if you look at our closest neighbours, the UK including Northern Ireland, you can't but conclude that DNA collecting in the criminal investigation system is very widespread but also that judges are quite reluctant to rely on DNA evidence only ( see the Massareene Barracks shootings and Lord Justice Hart's criticisms on forensic delays and weariness of over reliance on just DNA evidence ).

Also, forensic DNA testing of evidential value is quite likely of a more stringent nature than an of the shelf kit that promises to give you health advice etc etc...from the very start in Police custody and at crime scenes serious effort goes into the prevention of contamination and evidentially sound recording and tracking of all sample movements is applied. The least little hick up in the collecting process and sample administration will give any barrister worth his money an opportunity to get the evidence disregarded by the courts and rightly so.

Oh, I agree entirely that the standards are high. I just worry about the false positive rates even when those high standards are adhered to.

Part of the problem is that the entertainment industry tends to show DNA evidence as infallible and that probably makes it difficult for barristers and judges to ensure jurors have an accurate understanding of the evidence. I know from personal experience how difficult it is for jury members to set aside what they thought they knew and to operate only as instructed by the judge.

I guess I'm wary in general of any criminal justice/forensic database that includes people who've never been convicted of a crime. Apart from the usual civil liberties arguments it just seems like a good way to accidentally convict more innocent people.

meathstevie

IRLConor wrote: »

Oh, I agree entirely that the standards are high. I just worry about the false positive rates even when those high standards are adhered to.

Part of the problem is that the entertainment industry tends to show DNA evidence as infallible and that probably makes it difficult for barristers and judges to ensure jurors have an accurate understanding of the evidence. I know from personal experience how difficult it is for jury members to set aside what they thought they knew and to operate only as instructed by the judge.

I guess I'm wary in general of any criminal justice/forensic database that includes people who've never been convicted of a crime. Apart from the usual civil liberties arguments it just seems like a good way to accidentally convict more innocent people.

You're hitting the nail on the head Conor, people's expectations are often not realistic when someone from the Garda Techinical Bureau or a PSNI CSI goes to work.

First of all you can't fabricate what isn't there or can't start builiding a whole string of assumptions on what's there. DNA evidence is no different from any other material evidence when it comes to that; it's part of an investigation strategy and part of a quantity of physical evidence in a case. It'll never stand on it's own if it's not possible to link it's presence to the wider context of an incident.

Put it this way. If a lad decided to go into Tesco in Finglas with a shotgun this afternoon a cigarette but on the floor that was brought into the shop on the soles of the robber's shoes with dear old Mary from Seamus Ennis Road who's 97 years of age and the granny of the local Superintendent her DNA all over it is not going to do anything to help the investigation and neither will it get dear old Mary arrested and interviewed especially not since she's well known to smoke 40 Major's a day and do all her shopping in Tesco in Finglas.

That's reality compared to CSI on telly where of course the only person at the till will have been the armed robber, there's no dear old Mary's leaving buts in the carpark to be walked into a scene and the technology is simply miles beyond anything in the real world.

And of course there's the civil liberties aspect. A debate that can be held ad infinitum and where by the looks of things given recent leaks and scandal on an international level privacy seems to be losing out against data gathering by means fair or faul.

ARWRanger

Potential-Monke wrote: »

All we need to do now is set up an Agreement with Apple and we'll have all the fingerprints too!

But i was always a believer in a DNA database, and think DNA should be held on file from birth. I can understand the potential reasons why it shouldn't, but with proper security i can't see it as a problem, especially in this country.

Or just treat the humans so they will not commit crimes, make the Earth a place where there is no reason to commit crimes.

Why do people commit crimes in the first place?.
You need to stop it all together.

bravestar

ARWRanger wrote: »

Or just treat the humans so they will not commit crimes, make the Earth a place where there is no reason to commit crimes.

Why do people commit crimes in the first place?.
You need to stop it all together.

"The humans"... As opposed to the robots on your planet? Exterminate...exterminate!