We note with interest that almost 15 000 people have viewed our petition but only 3 950 people have actually signed it.

We also noted a comment sent to us by one of those people who viewed but did not sign the petition and it reads as follows:

“I don’t agree fully. I agree that DNA should be taken from convicted criminals for serious crimes. I don’t however agree that arrestees’ DNA should be taken as is stated in your Avaaz campaign. This infringes on your right that you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. It is not fair that your DNA be put in a system, when in fact you are proven innocent. For that matter they can just as well ask every South Africa to visit their nearest hospital with a copy of their ID in order to have a DNA sample taken, so that the government can keep records on you – should you ever commit any type of crime at all. This can be used against you in other ways eventually. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but things can happen that are planted against you to make you look guilty because the police have access to your records.If you change the Arrestee part, I’m sure you’ll receive many more signatures. Including my own. Carlo”

Perhaps it is our fault that we did not make it clear that The DNA Bill states very clearly that arrestees’ DNA Profiles will be removed from the National DNA Database if the arrest does not result in a conviction – in other words only Convicted Offenders’ DNA profiles will remain indefinitely on the DNA Database. Currently there is no regulatory or retention framework for DNA profiles taken from suspects and kept in the repository of DNA profiles held by the Forensic Science Lab – therefore, if anything, those with similar concerns should be strongly in favour of the DNA Bill which provides strict safeguards for the retention and expungement of different categories of DNA profiles on the DNA Database. Until such time as the DNA Bill is passed, no such framework exists.

In addition, it is important to understand that the presence of a DNA Profile on the National DNA Database is not a criminal record. It works in the same way as the current fingerprint database: it is a reference database against which fingerprints or DNA profiles, as the case may be, collected from crime scenes can be compared to known DNA profiles or fingerprints. The recent Fingerprint Database law passed by Government allows SAPS to search against all of the 3 fingerprint databases (SAPS, Home Affairs and Transport) when a fingerprint is found on a crime scene. We noted that no-one objected to that law being passed, yet surely the same principle applies: the concerned person above would therefore have to say:

It is not fair that your fingerprint be put in a system, when in fact you are proven innocent. For that matter they can just as well ask every South Africa to visit their nearest Government Department  with a copy of their ID in order to have a fingerprint taken, so that the government can keep records on you – should you ever commit any type of crime at all. This can be used against you in other ways eventually..

Suddenly that argument does not make sense as this is exactly what we all do, and we do it willingly – submit our fingerprints to the various South African Government databases. The Forensic DNA profile held on a Database in addition contains no private information about a person other than the person’s gender. In other words the DNA profiles are stored on the DNA Database by using markers from the non-coded regions of a person’s DNA which ensures that no genetic disposition or other distinguishing feature may be read from that profile other than gender. The retention of the profile, in that form, is the same as a fingerprint, and therefore its retention does not impact on the privacy of the individual in any way whatsoever. If one looks at developed DNA Databases throughout the world, two things become clear: one is that the DNA profile itself has never been challenged as an invasion of privacy precisely because it is accepted that it does not contain private information about that person other than gender. And two, there exists a regulatory framework to govern the retention and expungement of DNA Profiles on a Database.

The inclusion of a DNA profile into the DNA Database at the time of arrest is important because:

1. it quickly includes or excludes a suspect from the investigation: a DNA profile is an objective and reliable science and the DNA profile either matches the crime scene profile or it doesn’t.

2. it allows the SAPS to search that DNA profile against the crime scene profiles collected from other crime scenes – this will quickly identify a serial offender. We can’t imagine that in our country which has one of the highes rates of recidivism (re-offending rate) in the world, that the identification of serial offenders would not be supported given that it may save future lives by preventing that person from continuing to commit further crimes…?

3. the entry of the arrestee’s DNA profile onto the Database is an investigative lead, not a criminal record, and as mentioned above, will be removed after a specified period of time if the arrest does not result in a conviction.

Consider this case from the USA – this is not from CSI, it is a true story, and there are countless stories like these – which is why we need to ensure that proper laws are put into place in South Africa to prevent this from happening here – and it will happen if we don’t allow DNA profiles to be taken at the time of arrest:

Chester Turner was arrested 21 times over the period of 15 years without ever being convicted of a crime that would allow his DNA profile to be uploaded into the DNA database. When he was finally convicted of rape and his DNA profile was uploaded into CODIS, it matched to the crime scene DNA found on 12 raped and murdered women. The first of these women was murdered less than two months after his first felony arrest. Her name was Diane Johnson. He went on to murder Annette Ernest, Anita Fishman, Regina Washington, Debra Williams, Mary Edwards, Andrea Triplett, Desarae Jones, Natalie Price

Chester Turner was arrested 21 times over 15 years without ever being convicted of a crime that would allow his DNA profile to be uploaded into the DNA database.

, Mildred Beasley, Paula Vance and Brenda Bries. Had Turner’s DNA been taken upon his first felony arrest, crime scene evidence from Diane Johnson could have matched Turner’s CODIS profile and 11 women might have been saved. To compound this tragedy, a man name David Jones was wrongfully convicted and spent 11 years in prison. One cheek swab could have saved 11 lives and kept an innocent man from spending 11 years in prison. And recently Turner was linked to three more murders, bringing the lives that could have been spared to 14.

..and it will happen in South Africa if we don’t allow DNA profiles to be taken at the time of arrest!

Vanessa Lynch

This entry was posted on Mon, May 27th, 2013 at 11:11 am and is filed under DNA Project. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.