Remember back in the day when the English government decided to start collecting DNA from every person arrested for a crime? At the time, supporters of the controversial policy told critics that only actual criminals would end up having their DNA taken without probably cause.
But now comes a report from a retired British police official that officers in England and Wales have made arrests just to get people on to the DNA database. Police chiefs have denied the claim, which they called "plainly wrong". There are now about five million profiles in the British DNA database, a rise of 40% in two years.
The anonymous retired police superintendent, who is quoted in a government report entitled "Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear?", wrote to the advisory body expressing concerns that the way in which people were arrested appeared to have changed. He wrote: "It is now the norm to arrest offenders for everything if there is a power to do so. It matters not, of course, whether the arrest leads to no action, a caution or a charge, because the DNA is kept on the database anyway."
The HGC report also said some groups featured disproportionately on the database - with young black men "very highly over-represented".
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