INVITATIONS FOR PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS IN RESPECT OF THE DNA BILL HAVE BEEN CALLED

THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON POLICE INVITES INTERESTED PEOPLE AND STAKEHOLDERS TO SUBMIT WRITTEN COMMENTS ON THE CRIMINAL LAW (FORENSIC PROCEDURES) AMENDMENT BILL ['THE DNA BILL']. ***

Written submissions addressed to the Portfolio Committee on Police, should be directed to the Committee Secretary, Babalwa Mbengo, and posted to P. O. Box 15, Cape Town 8000, or e-mailed to bmbengo@parliament.gov.za or faxed to 086 665 5444. Kindly indicate your interest in making a verbal presentation to the Committee.

The closing date for submissions is 12:00 on Friday, 31 May 2013.

***The DNA Project has issued guidelines in respect of how to draft a submission to Parliament for those who wish to do so. Click here should you wish to read these guidelines.

You can also sign our petition here and show your support to Pass the DNA Legislation!

Parliament Buildings, Cape Town

The Bill aims to amend the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977, so as to provide for the taking of specific bodily samples from certain categories of persons, for the purpose of forensic DNA analysis; to provide for the conditions under which the samples or forensic DNA profiles derived from the samples may be retained, or the periods within which they may be destroyed; to further regulate proof of certain facts by affidavit or certificate; to amend the South African Police Service Act, 1995, to establish and regulate the administration and maintenance of the National Forensic DNA Database of South Africa; to amend the Firearms Control Act, 2000, so as to further regulate the powers in respect of bodily samples for investigation purposes, and to amend the Explosives Act, 2003, so as to further regulate the power in respect of bodily samples for investigation purpose; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

To download a copy of the DNA Bill click on the following link DNA BILL B09-2013.9 MAY 2013

Additional information and copies of the Bill may be obtained from the Committee Secretary who may be reached via email or on tel. 021 403 3741, or cell. 072 327 1993.
This notice has been issued by Ms A. Van Wyk, MP, Acting Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police.

TO READ THE OFFICIAL NOTICE IN AFRIKAANS CLICK HERE AFRIKAANS

TO READ THE OFFICIAL NOTICE IN ZULU CLICK HERE ZULU

TO READ THE OFFICIAL NOTICE IN ENGLISH CLICK HERE ENGLISH

We are often asked whether we have any success stories using DNA in South Africa – well here is a great success story about using the power of DNA to identify serial offenders: a man has been linked to seven rape cases committed over a 5 year period, through his DNA. The rapes were committed between 2008 and 2012 in the greater Durban and KwaDukuza areas.
The 34-year-old man is due to appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court soon.  We will be sure to follow this case in the hope that the linking of his DNA to each case will secure a conviction.  http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Suspect-linked-to-rapes-through-DNA-20130514

The DNA Bill is official: click on the links below to read the official DNA Bill which has been introduced into Parliament for review. DNA BILL B09-2013.9 MAY 2013

We expect calls for public submissions to be advertised Within the next few weeks, so please watch this space to ensure that you don’t miss out on the chance of sending in your written submission to Parliament in support of the Bill. Details will be published on this website, facebook and twitter and as soon as we are given same.

Bill 09 – Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Bill

Printer-friendly version

Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Bill [B9-2013]

• Bill 09 – Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Bill

Bill Version:

B9-2013

Effective Date:

8 May 2013

Document Attachment:

Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Bill [B9-2013]

Well done to our amazing DNA Project Team who rode the 2 day, 100km HouwHoek Mountain Bike Ride this weekend.

A huge Thank You also goes out to the organisers of the event for helping us create such great awareness of The DNA Project and our cause over the course of the weekend. Click here to see more photos of The DNA Project Team @HouwHoek

The below article came across my desk this morning – it resonated with me as I had a similar discussion at lunch yesterday – someone criticised the entire police force due to the actions of one officer . I found myself defending our SAPS as I have met so many good ‘cops’ that don’t get the recognition they deserve due to the bad behaviour of the ones that make it to the headlines. We are all guilty of often falling into the trap of painting everyone with the same brush – after reading this article, perhaps take some time to think of the good ‘cops’ out there, who do great work, and who deserve some recognition for that from us all every now and again.

Vanessa

This article, written by Justin Foxton,  first appeared in The Mercury on Monday 29th April 2013

Of all the many things that America does well; democracy, hamburgers, bottomless soda and happy endings – it does overkill best of all.
The response to the Boston Marathon bombings – a dreadful and deplorable act of terrorism no doubt – was like something out of a Hollywood action flick starring Chuck Norris or Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Boston – a city with a population of over 600 thousand people and a land area of more than 125 square kilometres – was locked down until an all out manhunt saw the capture of an injured 19 year old Chechen suspect as he cowered in a bloodied boat in someone’s back garden.

After the capture of this obviously misguided youth, hundreds of residents lined the streets to cheer law enforcement officers. They apparently broke into chants of “USA USA USA” and a boom box belted out Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” as US flags were raised aloft by ecstatic patriots. Relief and overkill bubbled over.

But in spite of the over-the-top American-ness of all this, there are lessons to be learnt from how the Yanks do life. Firstly, don’t you wish that we cared enough about human life here in South Africa to even consider locking down an entire city – or even suburb – when three people got killed? We can suffer over 150 brutal criminal attacks on residents of the Upper Highway area of Kwa-Zulu Natal in one month and no one talks about locking the place down. What would that even look like I wonder?

We can also draw lessons from America’s understanding of the value of celebration. When the police and the FBI caught the baddie, the public took to the streets and honoured the men and women in uniform who had worked tirelessly to catch their man. Not us. When our cops embark on exhausting and dangerous manhunts – and catch the bad guys as they often do – we don’t so much as drop KFC and a Coke at the local police station let alone take to the streets and wave South African flags around hysterically. We are quick to berate our police for being fat, lazy and incompetent but do we ever bother to honour them when great work is done?

Human beings thrive on affirmation. How can we expect our police to rise to the enormous challenges presented by crime in South Africa when all we keep reiterating is that they are overweight, useless and corrupt? What about the hard working ones? What about the honest ones? What about the ones who give their lives to protect us and our families but who still die with our scorn heaped on their heads? Do these people not deserve our thanks? Or do we just say that our taxes pay their salaries so why should we bother to thank them?

We can learn from those crazy Americans and apply the lessons to other arenas in which the dominant discourse is of ineptitude and laziness….

Our discourse is so dominated by the negative that we often fail to see the successes that are going on before our very eyes – even in areas like policing… Without creating room for celebration of the good, human beings inevitably drown in a sea of bad.

And this is what we can do to inspire an awakening of great service in our country; become people who draw the best out of one another by thanking, honouring and celebrating rather than constantly complaining and critisising.

Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.

Following Cabinet’s approval earlier this month of the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Bill, an explanatory summary of the proposed new statute was gazetted on Friday  26 April 2013 (General Notice 435 of Government Gazette 36415) in anticipation of its introduction in Parliament.

According to the summary, the Bill seeks to provide for the ‘the taking of specified bodily samples’ for forensic purposes, their retention and destruction, as well as for the establishment, administration and maintenance of a national forensic DNA database. With this in mind, it proposes amendments to Criminal Procedure Act 51/1977, South African Police Service Act 68/1995, Firearms Control Act 60/2000 and Explosives Act 15/2003.

We note however that the Bill has yet to be published on either of the websites mentioned in the Gazette.

To read the Government Gazette Notice click on the following link: GG NOTICE 26 APRIL 2013

What makes an awareness campaign successful? Not being a creative myself, I have no idea what formula one would use to determine this. As a layman in this arena, I simply rely on feedback. And our Cape Town Station ‘Never Disturb a Crime Scene’ Ad, has received more than its share of feedback over the last few months – in fact it has positively shined through. So many people have seen our ad and commended us on  a great idea with such a clear message. But these accolades do not belong to us and there are so many people we need to thank for this:

Thanks to FoxP2 for conceiving this unbelievable idea. They are a team of creative geniuses who managed to pull this off and they deserve all the credit for a great activation.

Thanks to the incredible  Change a Life Trust for helping us fund this project. Together you are helping us  not only change, but save lives.

Thanks to etv for giving us 820 airtime slots over the last few months at a value of over R6 000 000 at no cost to ourselves. Thanks also goes to DSTV for giving us 250 airtime slots at a value of over R3 300 000 at no cost to ourselves. They both believed in our work and were willing to be a part of a collective solution to try and educate the South African public as to the importance of preserving evidence on a crime scene in order to help secure convictions. Without their generous platforms, we would not have been able to disseminate this critical message.

Thanks to Amplicon Public Relations, part of the FoxP2 Group, for helping us disseminate the ad through all forms of social media and congratulations goes out to them too as they recently won Bronze in the “PR on a shoestring” category with their DNA Project “Station Activation” entry at the 2013 PRISM Awards.

Bronze Prism Award goes to The DNA Project Ad

And last but not least, thanks to you, the public, for watching our ad. Everyone who has seen our ad has given us such positive feedback: they tell us that they just ‘GET IT!’ and I think that is the key to a successful awareness campaign.

NEVER DISTURB A CRIME SCENE.

DNA EVIDENCE CONVICTS.

Vanessa Lynch

The DNA Project has been invited to be part of the capacity building pilot project for CPF’s, initiated by SAPS and BACSA.

Business Against Crime South Africa (BACSA) has leveraged the skills of the DNA PROJECT to run free, crime scene awareness training workshops for CPF’s in seven pilot stations in Gauteng as part of its joint collaboration with SAPS. The recent collaboration is part of a capacity building project for CPF’s and is one of many of the jointly agreed initiatives entered into between BACSA and SAPS.

A sample of our crime scene tape which is issued to CPF's to assist with crime scene protection

The initiatives stem from the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between BACSA and SAPS and provides structure and accountability to the relationship. The initiatives, including CPF capacity building pilot project, have been conceptualised based on the information provided by SAPS on the core strategic risks facing the Police service.

The project’s footprint is national but for purposes of the pilot the following seven Gauteng police stations have been selected as sites:
• Alexandra;
• Bronkhorstspruit;
• Cullinan;
• Dube;
• Diepsloot;
• Midrand; and
• Norkem Park.

The insights and lessons learnt from the pilot phase will serve as a basis for the best practice model to be rolled out to other provinces.

The aim : To enhance community and police relations to improve on service delivery and a number of challenges have been identified. Key amongst these challenges is the limited understanding of the role and responsibilities of the CPF by CPF members. One other key deficiency identified is the need for skills development for the Community Police Forum executive members in the seven pilot stations.

CPF members will learn about different types of DNA evidence found on crime scenes

To mitigate the two identified key challenges, SAPS Human Resources Division (HRD) has developed a training manual for CPF’s and three instalments of three days training workshops have been planned. The first one will be taking place from 26-28 April 2013. A skills audit of the CPF executive members in the seven stations has been compiled and submitted to SAPS HRD for the design of skills development and other capacity building interventions.

BACSA’s role in its long-standing working relationship with SAPS is to identify and leverage skills not resident within the SAPS environments from the private sector to support and expertise in alignment with SAPS objectives.

The DNA Project will form part of this three day training programme and will focus on providing CPF’s with a basic understanding of how DNA evidence is being used to assist in criminal investigations and why it is therefore vital not to enter or disturb a crime scene. Members of the CPF’s and sub structures are
in some cases the first people who arrive at a crime scene with potential DNA evidence. Without proper training and understanding of the value of the DNA

Never Disturb a Crime Scene

evidence, vital evidence is contaminated. The workshops consist of a presentation by a DNA project approved trainer (who is knowledgeable in the field of DNA profiling). A broadcast and distribution of a DNA awareness DVD is also compiled and produced by the DNA Project.

The training programme will kick off this weekend in Pretoria.