Database Work

In the last fortnight, 3 hugely unpleasant murder cases (as opposed to those happy-go-lucky murders…) have been concluded in the UK. 2 serial killers and 1 stultifyingly sick fuck found themselves convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The two serial killers (Levi Bellfield and Steve Wright) were told that they will never be released. The aforementioned sick fuck, possible serial killer Mark Dixie, will serve at least 34 years. (Why do I call him sick and not the serial killers? Because his defence against the murder of Sally Anne Bowman, whose raped and brutalised corpse was pretty much hosed with his DNA, was that he’d not murdered her but happened upon her body and had sex with it. Speaking as a former solicitor, I would imagine his defence team will have been almost sexually excited themselves when they dreamt that up).

This trio of charmers sparked off 2 debates in this country. The first, that of the death penalty, is something I’ve discussed before. My opinion, for what it’s worth, hasn’t changed; baying for the blood of somebody (no matter what kind of repugnant scum they are) is, unless one is a family member of the victim, indicative of a stupid and cruel person to whom empathy has become a foreign feeling. Whether they’re assuaging some vague sense of guilt (Jamie Bulger’s killers are regularly mentioned in internet petitions demanding medieval justice. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that his killers walked him, crying and visibly scared, past dozens of people who did nothing to help him), or simply wallowing in grief and anger that has nothing to do with them, I have no time for anyone who belligerently insists on the death of another human being. The taking of a life should always be a matter of regret. Regretfully, I would agree that all three of these gentlemen need to be studied in some detail to find out just what makes them tick before being quietly put to sleep.

The other debate is one that, as someone whose job title is to all intents and purposes “Database geek”, holds quite a lot of interest for me. All of these men were convicted with the help of DNA evidence. In the case of Dixie and Bellfield, DNA samples were taken by the police on unrelated matters, and when DNA from their murders was checked against the DNA database, voila; the police had strong evidence that they had their murderer. The debate that has been forming on the basis of this is “Shouldn’t the state have a DNA database of every person in the UK to make it easier to catch people like this?”

Broadly speaking, 2 sides seem to have formed (well…3 sides; these days, in any debate and no matter how emotive it may be, there is always a good sized contingent who would vote “I really don’t care”); on the one hand we have people who say “Yes, of course we should because DNA is 99.99% reliable, and anything that helps society catch and rid itself of monsters like these 3 men is a good idea”. On the other, there are the people who say “Why exactly should we trust the state, which doesn’t exactly have a good record of looking after confidential information on its citizens, with a database containing DNA records? And in any case, we are not a nation of suspects; I resent being treated like one by having to provide a DNA sample.”

Both of these views have their relative merits, and it’s worth taking the time to look at both of them before making up ones mind.

First of all, what are the arguments in favour of a national DNA database? It seems to me that quite a lot of the support for the database is predicated on a false notion; that DNA evidence cannot lie, that because of the cold science behind it, it is therefore incapable of being biased or irrational. Therefore, no-one has anything to fear from a DNA database because it cannot be mis-used.

Well now, here’s a thing; whenever I’m working in a database, all of the information in there is just as cold and factual as the sequence of an individual’s DNA. However, I can manipulate that information in pretty much any way I choose to provide evidence of whatever it is I want to say. What’s more, because I’m good at my job (and oh so bashful about it), I can do so in a way that could not actually be called “lying”. What I get out of the database will be 100% factually accurate, yet on several occasions I would shy away from calling it “the truth”. More often than not, it simply provides evidence to back up my point of view in a discussion (or argument) with my boss.

What I’m trying to say here is that context is everything. We’re told that DNA is an infallible, unfailingly accurate method of identification? Well…so are fingerprints. We don’t have a national fingerprint database (yet…), but wouldn’t this help the detection of crimes? We’ve had fingerprinting as a technique for identifying suspects for over a century, yet we’ve gotten on rather well without trying to set up a monolithic database with everyone’s prints on there. As for being always accurate…well, I’m not going to pretend to understand all of the science behind matching DNA samples. However, I do find myself wondering; how exactly do they collect the DNA from the scene of the crime? What are the risks of contamination and a correspondingly lower chance of the DNA from the scene being a “pure” sample? On a more paranoid note, how easy would it be for someone to introduce a DNA sample taken from the database to the scene of a crime in order to make someone a suspect? Particularly if someone is already strongly suspected but their DNA has not made an appearance in the crime scene; how tempted would you be as a policeman to do that in order to try and get a conviction?

Personally, I feel that relying on DNA evidence alone can be a dangerous thing. In fact, reliance on a single piece of evidence is regarded as dangerous by the entire legal system. There used to be rules on how a judge had to direct the jury if a case relied on a piece of evidence uncorroborated by anything else. Although the legislation that set out those rules was wiped out by section 34 of the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, they lived on in the form of a discretionary warning given to juries by judges which is called a Makanjuola Warning (named after a case in the court of appeal). If such a warning was issued to juries in every such case, then I personally would have my main objection to DNA evidence wiped out in one stroke. I’m not entirely sure that it is at present, although Barry George winning his appeal against his conviction for shooting Jill Dando (based entirely on forensic and DNA evidence) might lead to a change there; I’ll certainly be interested to see the result of his retrial.

I haven’t yet addressed the more widespread fear that a police force with a database of the DNA of every citizen is a bad thing. I have that same feeling, though I’ve got difficulty articulating just why it makes me uneasy. Perhaps the fact that I’ve never had anything but good experiences of the police has kept my view in this regard from hardening (my DNA is nestling in the current database of people who’ve been arrested whether they were subsequently charged or not, and I find I don’t really care). In other words, I accept that I don’t fully buy into the argument for completely personal reasons. Therefore I can’t dismiss it as a load of old mungbeans, nor can I support it wholeheartedly. Suffice to say that I believe it should be up to the Police to convince us why we have to have such a database, rather than for us to give reason why we shouldn’t.

We do, at the opposite extreme, have some people who feel that DNA evidence doesn’t have a place in investigation of a crime. Not unreasonably, they feel that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime should have their DNA sample destroyed.

I think this view comes from two wellsprings. The first is something we’ve just looked at; that uneasy fears that it will somehow be used against us, or at least our awareness of the potential for that to happen. The second is a rather more traditional form of pride; if I’ve done nothing wrong, I’m innocent. And if I’m innocent, why are you keeping hold of my DNA? It’s been used in the solving of this crime, and I resent the implication that I may decide to commit future crimes. It’s like you’re using my DNA as a deposit to ensure my future good behaviour.

This viewpoint, whilst opposing the “DNA Database helps catch murderers” opinion, is just as valid. And when we are left with two equally valid attitudes, how do we reconcile them? If our government’s track record is anything to go by, they’ll do so by either ignoring both until the furore dies down, or making a cack handed compromise that manages to please no one unite both sides in their anger at the government for being so inept.

Perhaps I’m being unfair, because such balancing acts are what governments are meant to do on a daily basis and with every issue imaginable. But hey, that’s what they say they’re going to do when they’re elected, so fuck ‘em. They have deliberately tried to get to the top rung of society’s ladder, and they get whatever privilege that entails. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable in asking them to discharge their duties too.

Which brings us back to “how do we settle this argument?”. I’m buggered if I know, but I think I know why it arose in the first place. We live in a democratic society, and one of the definitions of that society is that we as individuals give up certain rights and have certain duties we should perform in order to enjoy the protections of that society. However, these days we have the perception that those at the top couldn’t give a shit about our rights and are only concerned with adding to our duties. And that society itself is sick and broken, so we are resentful of doing anything to benefit it. With that backdrop, is it any wonder that a measure that has unquestionably stopped 3 remarkably vile men from committing further atrocities is facing such a groundswell of justifiable opposition?