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UK Police Want DNA of 'Potential Offenders'
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Mar 16, 2008 05:29 PM
from the when-everyone-is-special-nobody-is dept.
from the when-everyone-is-special-nobody-is dept.
mrogers writes "British police want to collect DNA samples from children as young as five who 'exhibit behavior indicating they may become criminals in later life'. A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers argued that since some schools already take pupils' fingerprints, the collection and permanent storage of DNA samples was the logical next step. And of course, if anyone argues that branding naughty five-year-olds as lifelong criminals will stigmatize them, the proposed solution will be to take samples from all children."
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News: DHS to Begin Collecting DNA of Anyone Arrested 483 comments
Foobar of Borg writes "The AP is reporting that the US will soon be collecting the DNA of anyone who is arrested by a federal law enforcement agency and any foreigner who is detained, whether or not charges are eventually brought. This begins to bring the US in line with the UK which, as discussed before on Slashdot, is trying to collect DNA of 'potential criminals' as young as five. DHS spokesman Russ Knocke stated that 'DNA is a proven law-enforcement tool.'"
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If they want my DNA... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If they want my DNA... (Score:5, Funny)
I wouldn't if I were you, you might catch something nasty.
Parent
For fuck's sake (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they almost done with their 1984-like obsession in becoming a police state?
Ooh, look, little Johnny is acting a little weird! Quick, get a DNA sample from him, he could be a future criminal!
It doesn't even make sense!
Re:For fuck's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
But one would think that the UK, with THOUSANDS of years of experience, and having had their nation bombed and burned by fascists would be a good bit more on top of this kind of thing. But. no. It's like they're saying "Roights? Who needs roights? Cor Blimey - just gimme a pint there guvnah!" sheeesh. Between the jillions of cameras in London, which HAVEN'T really made the city safer, and the constant erosion of human rights and common sense, argh. It's a sad thing to watch.
RS
Parent
Re:For fuck's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as one of the purported knuckledragging retards, I would like to point out just how many people in the US are fanatically against what is happening here. Even with speaking out and performing civil disobediance, we don't seem to be able to gain any traction, let alone actual forward motion against our government.
The astronomically high level of collusion, complicity, and corruption in the government, the military industrial complex, and special interests makes it nearly impossible to keep our rights from eroding faster and faster.
So you can insult us all you want, but we are just working off the example of the UK with its "thousands of years of experience". Not to compare "our pain", but you did have absolute monarchies in your past and have worked from the ground up for personal liberties. The US started out with the pretense of "liberty for all" and turned it to "power and property for the few".
Maybe instead of taking the time to drag the US in the mud with your name calling, you could use all that energy for some good ol' civil disobediance. Put a burning tire around one of those cameras, sabotage something, anything.
If anything, both of our systems of government are broken irreparably, and need to be tore down with something new put in its place. Of course, that will be awfully hard to do peacefully, which is my greatest fear.
Parent
US politics... (Score:5, Insightful)
b) There's a demonstrable negative correlation between intelligence and religious belief, for an intelligent person to be a successful politician in the USA they mostly have to lie about their religious beliefs (eg. Pres. Clinton).
Conclusion: The US political system is biased against intelligent, honest people.
Parent
Re:US politics... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:US politics... (Score:4, Interesting)
One of those (http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/religion_vs_iq.html [godandscience.org]) makes the point that GDP had a more significant factor on IQ than did religion. But you would expect that as it is primarily a Christian organisation. Perhaps you should be so curious as to read the articles and not just assume you understand from the title...
Secondly, there have been a significant number of religious types who have managed to be considered the 'father' of a branch of science as well as others who have demonstrated a considerable ability to out think their collegues. (Don't be fooled into thinking that atheism began with Darwin; it has a long history.)
Thirdly; (personal anecdote) I am continually frustrated by my secular colleagues (who have no trouble mocking me for my 'inability to think for myself' ) reluctance to uncover why things happen. They are happy that 'science' has the answers and argue on the basis of 'authority'! (Logic be damned!)
Apparently I am a anomaly as I am frequently told to just believe it works, don't worry about how. My peers are wearied of my attention to details. I'm also often accused of being dogmatic -- rarely in regards to religion though (Perhaps I should develop a delusion of grandeur!). Most of the articles conclusions would be better subscribed to education, not religion.
Religion's affect on education is a better measure (Yes, I believe education should be separated from religion -- I know many Christians, some atheists, a few Muslims and several pagans. No one's background should inspire confidence in their ability to think -- they are still human.) as religion is unfortunately very susceptible to bureaucracy which is inverse to intelligence. jk.
Parent
Re:For fuck's sake (Score:4, Insightful)
You are correct. Please note: I'm not in the UK. I find what is happening there very sad, and just as sad as the USA, my former homeland.
This song sums up my feelings about the USA:
Going to a Town [youtube.com]
And this sums up my opinion of WAY too many of its inhabitants:
America [youtube.com]
And with the way the UK govt is going, it's going straight here:
SexCrime [youtube.com]
And it's just really really sad to watch. The USA did away with habeus corpus, and the gutless democrats haven't found the FUCKING BALLS to reinstate it. But it was the Brits who invented it BECAUSE of a Really Craptastic King they had forcing them to develop the Magna Carta. So many thousands of people struggled and died for the freedoms we all take for granted, and it seems people are just too stupid or cowed to bother demanding their privacy and freedom.
RS
Parent
Re:For fuck's sake (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:For fuck's sake (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure it makes sense:
Nobody thinks their precious little snowflake is going to be caught by that, so they want to defend their child against the evil little children.
Parent
Re:For fuck's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I'd guess that there are a good number of people who are afraid that their own kid just might get caught by it, so they'll resist getting into the DNA database. The reason is that humanity has a long, sorry history of looking for this sort of magic test that will lighten the tough load of good police work, and let the authorities just go out and arrest people who show some physical features that are listed as sure signs of criminality.
The classical physical features are race-related, of course. Lots of Americans "know" that dark-skinned people are all criminals who haven't yet been caught. In Europe, the victim groups are sometimes different, the they've always existed. In northern Europe, it's people from southern Europe. In southern Europe, it's people from Africa or the East. And everywhere, it's gypsies. If a person in the wrong group is anywhere near the scene of a crime, they get arrested and charged with the crime. It's a lot easier than the hard work of finding the actual culprit, y'know.
It wasn't so long ago that having the wrong bumps on your head made you a "potential criminal". We know now that that was pseudo-science, but enough people believed it that the police could use it as a way of avoiding the hard police work. Lately, we've had a few people pointing out that fingerprinting has never been scientifically tested, is at most useful for rejecting suspects whose prints don't match, and textbooks go into great detail about the situations where matching isn't even possible. But the technical skeptics are ignored, because it simplifies the job of picking someone to arrest (and Hollywood has told us that it works).
And in general, the poorest people are always "potential criminals". I suppose the reasoning is that they are the ones with the strongest motive to be criminals. And, of course, if you can't get a job because you didn't get a good education because your parents couldn't afford to pay for good schools, you may find that a criminal life is the only one open to you.
Anyway, I'd guess that in most of the world, there's a good-sized underclass that will instantly understand what this latest "potential offender" test means. It means that their DNA will be the type classified as potential offenders. Being on the list will eliminate most of their job opportunities, and will lead to arrests any time they happen to be near a crime scene. If your kids are on the list, they'll never have a good job and will be repeatedly arrested no matter what they do or how they live.
With the stage of our current DNA understanding, this is just another in the long line of pseudo-scientific tests for criminality. Anyone with a good understanding of what DNA is and how it works is going to be highly skeptical. DNA may influence your behavior; it certainly doesn't determine your behavior. But we can expect that the politicians and police won't pay attention to geeky technical skeptics. Not when they've got the latest high-tech excuse to avoid the hard police work and just arrest someone nearby with the wrong DNA. Especially not when the database "proves" that it's mostly the "wrong people" who are criminals, just like we knew all along.
Parent
Re:For fuck's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me describe a parallel for you.
I used to be a nurse, years ago. After the first year of hospital work it got to the point where I had a very narrow view of society. I mostly saw sick people, so after a while I started to think of everyone outside the hospital in terms of how likely they were to appear in hospital as a result of their behavior or diet. This wasn't a particulerly useful viewpoint, but I still held it.
I realised this, and it took a long time to get past. Not all the nurses I knew managed this.
If your life revolves around dealing with people in a particular state, you tend to become very focused on it. To the police, everyone is viewed in terms of how likely they are to be criminals. They can't help it, our society demands it of them (yes indeed, it does, alas).
I'm more concerned with how much of our taxes this is going to waste before they realise it's pointless.
Parent
Re:For fuck's sake (Score:5, Interesting)
If such a scheme were enacted, families that opted in would, almost certainly, be those which did not tend to produce criminals. Families more likely to include those with criminal tendencies almost certainly wouldn't be interested.
I don't like to generalize, but in my experience, people who commit crime tend to do so often, and tend also to belong to families within which such behavior is considered acceptable. There are families in my town known to be mostly composed of members who commit crime (sad but true). Why I don't know, but the chances of those families willingly co-operating with any such scheme are non existent.
My experience may be limited in this respect, but I have no-one else's experience to draw on.
Parent
Re:For fuck's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a friend who is a management consultant. Normally I have not truck with that profession, but he's a really good management consultant, because he's a really good listener. He can listen and listen until you've talked yourself in circles so many times even you realize it. Then he tells you something that would be blindingly obvious to you if you hadn't managed to bury it under tons of mental clutter. In a sense, he specializes in reminding people of the things they shouldn't need a management a consultant to tell them, but somehow they do.
One of his chief themes has to do with confirmation bias. When people are favoring a course of action, the intended consequences of that course of action are very clear to them, sometimes even exaggerated. The unintended consequences tend to be fuzzy, or maybe even invisible.
So imagine you are trying to prevent violent crime. It's a very important job that you take seriously. You have the idea that getting DNA from young children with behavior problems and putting them in a database would prevent some violent crimes. And you're probably right: it would prevent some violent crimes, although you might not be able to quantify how many. But it's a sure bet you aren't considering the bad things that might happen as a result of this, much less quantifying those bad things and putting them into the scales against the good you intend. In fact, where you really go wrong is when you start to think of it, unconsciously of course, in personal terms. People who are pointing out bad things (which you are not prepared to believe) about your plan are trying to stop you from preventing violent crimes. So they must be bad people. Certainly not somebody you'd seriously listen to.
It's childish thinking of course, but are any of us completely above it? Mark Twain once said,"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." But I'd go farther; It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble; it's what you know but are too proud to be reminded of.
Parent
Orwell got the year wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Orwell got the year wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are five-year-olds who don't act out?
Parent
Re:Orwell got the year wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know you're just following the current trend, but ever since my son was small, it's annoyed me when teachers, school psychologists, pc moms, etc. use "acting out" to describe "acting up", in other words just plain bad behavior that needs to be corrected. "Acting out" means (Wikipedia) "to perform an action to express (often unconscious) emotional conflicts," and carries the subtle connotation that due to bad "parenting", the child has "issues" that the child expresses by "acting out" and needs to "resolve".
Sometimes 5-year-old kids just have too much energy and need to be disciplined or otherwise taught to control or focus their bad, disruptive, silly, destructive, or otherwise inappropriate behavior, and taught to understand when a certain behavior is acceptable and when it isn't. It's that simple and doesn't need weekly psychotherapy sessions. When I was a kid, I never even heard of "acting out". It was "stop acting up and behave yourself."
Parent
Meeting expectations (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Meeting expectations (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the test the kids were given to determine their potential was bogus. Who would bloom and who wouldn't were chosen at random. But, at the end of the year, the kids who were supposed to be smart were scoring higher than the others, despite the fact that they were chosen at random. Subtle social forces affected them that much.
Moral of the story is to beware of self fulfilling prophecies. If you treat someone like they might be a criminal, they most likely will. And, of course, people will just say that's proof of the program working.
Hey, wasn't Einstein a problem child? Didn't work out too bad for him.
Parent
Re:Meeting expectations (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Too early for April fools (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too early for April fools (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
We already brand criminals as unemployable (Score:5, Interesting)
When children are despised (Score:5, Insightful)
If you grew up with people hating you simply because you're a kid how would you react?
Ever done something stupid ? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you say you have not then you are probably either: utterly boring; or lying.
All this ''record mistakes and label someone for life'' is stupid. It means that huge numbers are regarded as potential crims and becomes useless.
George Orewell was wrong - he chose a date 25 years too early.
There's a greater harm here (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many proven psychological reasons [wikipedia.org] why this would cause a vast amount of harm to the development of these children This article [wvu.edu] especially illustrates published studies that showed the effect of positive and negative expectation has on children's academic performance
Fucked up kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to get in before too many people start throwing around the term "1984" as if this had anything but the most tenuous connection to the book 1984. Have any of you actually read the book? Not every erosion of privacy is "1984", you know.
Sigh. Anyway. The matter at hand.
I am a former criminal myself, so this matter hits close to home. When I was in my adolescence, I was arrested for breaking and entering, and there was a lot more I did that I didn't get caught for, of course. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm quite successful now, if I say so myself. In my opinion, there are two major reasons why I'm not dead or in jail right now: the John Howard Society (prisoner's rights organization in the Commonwealth), and the Young Offender's Act (which helps keeps the under-18 out of jail).
Being branded as a "criminal" is a big deal. Through the two entities I just mentioned, I spent less than a day in jail and got mandatory counselling and restitution in lieu. I think one of the biggest factors in me turning my life around is that I wasn't branded for the rest of my life. I don't have a record; I don't have to report myself to neighbours. I'm just a regular citizen. It's quite empowering being a regular, fruitful citizen.
What I'm getting at is, even though I avoided it, I recognize the power of stigma. Even if there aren't any concrete restrictions on these kids, just knowing that you're one of the "bad kids" will fuck you up for life. There's no way these kids aren't going to find out they're one of the "bad kids", and once you're branded, it's a really hard uphill battle to get out of that stigma. Everyone looks at them differently; everyone treats them differently. I wouldn't envy them.
Please, won't somebody think of the children?!
UK is already an Orwellian Society (Score:5, Interesting)
Even very quick research shows that Great Britain already resembles the grim visions of '1984', 'Brasil' or 'A Clockwork Orange'.
CCTV is widespread, despite showing little or no effect on stopping crime, its usage is spreading.
Old people are already testing the high-frequency buzzers, to annoy and scare teenagers (it's a prime example of being guilty by default).
A visit to any UK international airport terminal leaves no doubt either - you are a dangerous terrorist until proven otherwise.
And now this, which isn't really new either, just a development on what's been going on for some quite time already.
And worst of all, most UK (or US for that matter) citizens don't seem to mind or care. This is very much reminiscent of a pre-WWII Germany.
I don't mean to sound radical or anything, but remember:
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"
Sigh..... (Score:5, Interesting)
1) CCTV cameras lining city streets.
2) Self-defense devices (Handguns, knives, tasers, stun guns, pepper spray) are either illegal or heavily regulated to the point where they are defacto illegal.
3) RFID tags in Passports can be used to track whereabouts of the holder.
4) Automated toll tags (like FasTrack) record road/bridge uses.
5) Traffic Cameras automatically cite "violators", doing the job of the police officer instead.
Why don't cops spend time tracking ACTUAL CRIMINALS and solving ACTUAL CRIMES, instead of grouping everyone together and tracking them as "potential criminals" and waiting for potential crimes?
Like taking candy from a baby. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Inevitability (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
First they came for the ... (Score:5, Insightful)
First they collected DNA from sex criminals.
Then they collected DNA from felons.
Then they collected DNA from all criminals.
Then they collected DNA from people who get speeding tickets.
Then they collected DNA from people who drive.
Then they collected DNA from everyone else.
Most people have someone in their family who has a speeding ticket if they don't themselves.
People value their privacy. They want to know that if they get a speeding ticket today, and there is a crime at a restaurant next year, the cup they drank from won't be used as evidence that they were in the restaurant at the time of the crime. What if the guy on the videotape was seen drinking out of a similar glass and he happens to look just like you. You will have been framed by your own DNA.
Parent
Re:First they came for the ... (Score:5, Informative)
First they collected DNA from sex criminals.
Then they collected DNA from felons.
Then they collected DNA from all criminals.
Then they collected DNA from people who get speeding tickets.
Then they collected DNA from people who drive.
Then they collected DNA from everyone else.
Parent
Re:Will someone explain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Officer Krupke then says "So who ARE your friends?"
I stopped him.
"We've established that my son wasn't involved, my son has no association with anyone you named, and therefore he's not a material part of the investigation. If you insist on knowing my son's friends, who we've also established are not part of this group, I'll have to ask to step out while I discuss the legality of your request with my lawyer."
In a sudden outbreak of common sense, the good gendarme reconsidered his request.
Parent
Re:1984 is here and now. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:And? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:And? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
And... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really think there's even a single person in the whole world who has nothing to hide? How about your medical history, would you be okay with everyone knowing that? Do you not care if everyone know who you've slept with (or, as the case may be, have not slept with but pretended to have slept with)? How about that one time you've shat your pants for some ridiculous reason when you were 8 years old? You don't care if everyone knows this? How about letting the police know how fast you drive? You don't care about that? Surely you've never broken the speed limit? Or maybe crossed the road when the signal was still red? No jaywalking? Never littered? Never thrown a cup of coffee at your boyfriend in the heat of an argument? Never stole your neighbour's newspaper out of his box because you saw an interesting article? Never found a wallet without any identification and just kept the money? Never insulted your friend when he wasn't present? Want your new employer to know you've stolen a sandwich out of the fridge at your previous place of work? Or that you had an affair with your old boss's secretary? Or that you like to wear women's underwear? That you downrob gigs of movies and music off the Interwebs? Or that you jerk off to violent hot gritz fat chicks midget porn all evening? Or that you tend to post pages and pages of dumb crap on Slashdot instead of working (which, by the way, is obviously the only one of these points which applies to me, for the record :-)?
Nobody has nothing to hide, and our society only works because we're allowed to keep secrets. If every bad deed were punished, everyone would constantly be punished. Privacy is an important right; without it and without the ability to do "small" bad things, our society would not work.
Parent
Re:Parent needs remodding Insightful (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Parent needs remodding Insightful (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, but it was the construction of a police state that made the racism, oppression and genocide possible. I don't believe the current UK or US governments plan to start imprisoning their opponents or murdering people en masse, but they're building infrastructure that will make that kind of thing a lot easier for future governments.
There's a column in the International Herald Tribune that reprints the news from 100, 75 and 50 years ago. Right now the 75-year section of the column is charting Hitler's methodical replacement of the German Republic with a Fascist state. It's a horribly fascinating process to watch, for two reasons: first, we know how it ends, and second, we can see many of the same moves being attempted today.
Parent
the point of "papers please" is control. (Score:4, Insightful)
There will never be another Nazi state but the same mistakes can be made in new forms and you won't be able to tell the difference. Surveillance societies are the mechanism of tyranny and that always leads to mass murder. The point of control is profit and it's directed to private companies. The same thing happened in the USSR with individuals who controlled state companies. Those who obey are rewarded. Those who do not are punished. Everyone wants to be the top dog so societies like that alternate between purge, aka reign of terror, civil war and war of aggression. Make no mistake, when opposition is impossible, the abuse goes lawless and things get ugly fast.
The DNA portion has lots of Nazi potential. The samples and studies on them will fuel all sorts of crackpot eugenics as well as cure disease. Insurance companies will start discriminate against those with incurable disseases right away, mirroring Hitler's euthanasia program. Yes, the same stupid studies can be used to justify mass murder too as ordinary ethic clashes are given a new false footing in science but real tyranny will use any excuse for murder if it makes a buck. The most awful use of DNA is the intended one, ID. The thing which most uniquely identifies each human being as an individual will be treated like any other dehumanizing prisoner ID number. A cheap, impossible to remove ID just like everyone else's that can only do you harm.
The important thing being taught to children is that is that they are all suspects and property of an infallible state. Stand up and be counted.
Parent
Re:And? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds like the police proposing completely outlandish things, which the citizenry immediately shouts down, but it desensitizes them to things like tracking their children with GPS units, which they voluntarily buy [bbc.co.uk], without the government even telling them they have to.
I don't want anything less than an 'A' from my government when it comes to civil liberties, and no amount of crazy activity to lower my expectations will make me happy with anything less.
Parent
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, our politicians are too busy feathering their nests to make any reasonable decisions.
Parent
Re:Well, as Lewis Black would no doubt say ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I believed in God, I'd be praying for some serious smiting right about now.
Parent
Re:Well, as Lewis Black would no doubt say ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I did find the bit about hermiting into a hole with a big gun to escape insanity quite hilarious though.
Parent
Re:Law & Order (Score:5, Insightful)
That's probably because this has nothing to do with law and order. This is about totalitarianism, which is a crime.
-jcr
Parent
Re:Law & Order (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how safe from this we are here in the US? To my mind DNA is the epitome of "personal effects" as covered by the fourth amendment. (I would ask any lawyers here to explain the laws around requesting DNA samples.) Don't our British friends have something parallel about what types of things require a warrant to collect? Is any judge going to issue a warrant for evidence from a five year old?
Parent