Gardaí want fingerprints taken in all arrests

Bonito wrote: »

Yes, because the ratio of innocent people arrested for a crime is higher than those arrested who are guilty of committing a crime. :rolleyes:

Fair enough.
Now would you like to explain why you think that constitutes a rebuttal, because i don't see it.

CortezTheKiller wrote: »

I personally would have no problem, but can anyone who sees downsides perhaps offer them up?

Circumvents the principle of "Innocent until proven guilty"
And from a strictly pratical point of view - If the Gardaí start using the database to perform cold hits the chances of false positives rises astronomically.

It'll make no difference to the Abu Hamzas of this world, so a compulsory DNA database would mean that the terrorists have won.

I accept that I have not really thought this through.

Slugs wrote: »

What, and you don't think this'll be a precedent, wake up and smell the coffee, instead of living in fairyland. Do you honestly think that this is just going to end with fingerprints. That's where these things'll start. They already use mobile phones to track movements, and if we accept this, pretty soon we'll start going down the road of RFID chips. If you stopped thinking about the children for a second, and thought about this rationally, you'd see this would set what we adults call, a legal precedent. And as for your "think of the children", I say "**** the children"

Ah the old 'waaaahh waaaaahhh , this could lead to something completely different mwaaaaah ' rationale. I think this thread is heading into Godwin land. Utter paranoid hippy twaddle. Fingerprints for anyone who is arrested for ANYTHING. This thread needs a poll.

Really can't understand why it hasn't been done already.

The criminals are contantly using new methods and technologies to commit thir crimes. How can we expect the Gardai to bring crime rates down if they are not given the powers to do so.

The gang-bangers know these legal loopholes inside out, that's why they are continuosly recruiting young-lads who have never been arrested for anything serious to carry out some of the most heinous crimes. If they're prints are found at the scene there is nothing to identify them against.

fingerprinting is already very common in garda stations, but they destroy them after a length of time, fingerprinting is also done in the prisons, they are kept on file. in a 6 year period, i had my prints taken at least twice in a garda station with the ink roller, and i have no objection to gardai taking prints of people, it could help eliminate a suspect within minutes. although technology has gone well ahead, now we should be talking about dna, skin cells saliva hair etc as evidence

Bonito wrote: »

It's simple, really. How often do you get genuine caught in the wrong place at the wrong time situations? AGS are not stupid. They'd rarely pull in an innocent by-stander and cart them to the station. You're still innocent until proven guilty. That's evident from your rights. You're always arrested on suspicion of whatever.

As someone said earlier a fair justice system is built on absolutes.
Going "ahh now, that doesn't happen that often" as a rebuttal flies directly in the face if this.

Bonito wrote: »

Upon examining and questioning an arrested person and the AGS choose to charge them then their prints should be taken. If they're let go without charge then the AGS have no reason to have their prints unless they're a previous offender.

This makes sense. However, it's not what is being called for

from the OP
"Garda Superintendents have called for new laws to allow for fingerprints to be taken from everyone who is arrested and brought to a garda station."

So if you happen to be arrested then you're printed, despite the fact that your guilt has not been determined.

And there is still the statistical problems that systems like this present, which coupled with the above make this system something i do not approve of.

Mad_Max wrote: »

How so? I was always under the impression that fingerprints are 100% unique for every person. Surely this would mean no birthday problem?

They are. And so is DNA.

However they are not compared as wholes. DNA testing is not a comparison of whole sequences, it's a comparison of 13 genetic loci and a fingerprint is done on the minutiae of the finger. In fact for fingerprints it doesn't have to be a 100% match of all minutiae, just a significant number.


Now, if you're just doing a test between a sample and a piece of evidence, you're golden.

However, if you do a cold hit, which is where a piece of fingerprint evidence entered into a law enforcement database from an unsolved case is then searched against the entire database.
In some cases, the entire database is searched against itself, and any match is flagged.

The issue here is that even though the chances of two samples matching by coincidence might be very small, the combinatorial explosion that occurs on sufficiently large databases can cause an alarming number of false positives, as an Arizona crime lab analyst discovered two years back.

Wile E. Coyote wrote: »

Maybe when this is brought in we'll have a fair justice system where known criminals and repeat offenders aren't getting off on technicalities!

Don't be silly.

Also "getting of on a technicality" is a Hollywood myth. There is no such thing.