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National DNA Database

If profiling means that someone will make assumptions about a person's criminality or the sort of crime they might be about to commit or that they have committed on the basis of their skin colour, no. There is such a thing as scientific profiling, but the broad-brush profiling whereby a black teenage boy will be stopped in an Oxford street store as they go through the door, which has happened to my friends' children and to my son, does not help anyone and does not help to solve crime. Let me just give a brief overview of the introduction of the DNA database to this country, because it is so much a part of criminal justice that many people do not know how relatively recently it was introduced. During the early 1980s, Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys was working on a scientific basis for DNA fingerprinting. Ten years later, the DNA database was set up based on DNA fingerprinting technology that was invented by Professor Jeffreys. Since the beginning in 1995—not even 20 years ago—more than 5 million DNA profiles have been collected and are currently being kept. Prior to 2001, DNA that was collected from individuals who were arrested was destroyed on acquittal. However, in May 2001, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 was amended to permit DNA to be kept on the database—it did not mandate that DNA be kept on the database. The difference between something being permitted and being mandated is a point to which I will return, because I think that the police have got confused between the two issues.