Posts Tagged ‘Legislation’

 

Dr. Carolyn Hancock on 702 Radio

Wed, Jun 29th, 2011

Last Sunday, Udo Carelse from 702 Radio invited Dr. Carolyn Hancock to discuss the DNA Project and the role of DNA forensics in South Africa. 702 Radio has a special slot on a Sunday morning where they address issues of crime. They get station commanders from various policing stations to address issues in their areas. However, this week’s focus was on the recent break-ins at both the Gauteng police commissioner Mzwandile Petros’s home and the former national commissioner Jackie Selebi’s home. The general view was that such high profile people definitely receive special attention when they are victims of crime. However, changing to a slightly different

Udo Carelse

issue, Udo chatted to Carolyn about what is being done for the average South African when DNA evidence is left at a crime scene. They also discussed the new DNA Bill and the study tour currently being undertaken by the parliamentary committee to Canada and the UK. Below is the sound clip of the interview with Carolyn where she highlights the roll of DNA forensics and the need for the expansion of South Africa’s national DNA database. Please remember to contact us at maya@dnaproject.co.za if you are interested in our DNA awareness workshops!

Click on the link below for the interview, or right click and save the file.

Dr Carolyn Hancock 702 Radio

Note: The legislation was drafted in 2008 and not 1998 as stated in the sound clip.

Is DNA forensics being used in South Africa?

Mon, Jun 27th, 2011

Yes! DNA is used in a number of forensic investigations that are performed daily in South Africa. This is great news but unfortunately this amazing technology is still under utilised in our country. So what has been in the news lately?

A single cigarette butt left at the scene of a robbery and murder has led to the conviction of a 24-year-old man

An article, published in ioL news on the 21st June, describes how DNA evidence was used to convict a 24-year old man of the robbery and murder of Cornelia Janneke. Without the DNA evidence collected by police and the CSI team, Thumelo Monakedi would have never been brought to justice. The accused vehemently denied ever being at the scene of the crime. However, the saliva on the tip of a cigarette butt irrefutably proved his presence at the crime. With a 23 billion chance of the DNA profile on the cigarette not being the accused, it shows without any doubt who committed this crime!

With one child going missing every six hours in South Africa I found another recent article very interesting. A pilot project that involves the collection of pupil’s fingerprints, saliva swabs, hair samples and a photo ID of the pupil, has been introduced into a school in Brackenfell on the 20 June 2011.

OUCH! Bastion Primary Grade 1 pupil Anita Steyn, 7, braces herself as Sjean de Kock, a fourth-year social work student, takes a hair sample to be included in the IDENT-A-KID database, aimed at keeping children safe. Picture: Jeffrey Abrahams

Note is also taken of physical features, such as hair and eye colour as well as age. All this information will be stored on a school database, so that if a missing child is found the police will be able to identify the child. With projects like this in South Africa, we would also be able to identify missing children and reunite them with their families.

So going back to the main question, is DNA being used in forensic investigations in South Africa? Yes it is – but there is SO much more that still needs to be done….. For example, we desperately need to pass the amendment to the Criminal Procedures Act which would allow for the expansion of our National DNA Database. Unfortunately, due to the this legislation not being considered by the Parliamentary Committee for Police, the police are not empowered to utilise DNA evidence to it’s full potential. To quote a recent article written by Chris Asplen on the delay in the legislation regarding the expansion and regulation of the national DNA database, “hundreds of thousands of children’s lives are sacrificed because of the failure to act by politicians in South Africa.”