FactCheck: DNA - innocent or guilty?
Updated on 07 May 2009
Home Office minister Vernon Coaker was keen to stress that keeping DNA records of people found innocent had led to finding the culprits of other crimes, but is he right?
The claim
"We have found that DNA has been taken from other crime scenes, and when that DNA has been compared to DNA which has been kept on the database of people who are innocent, it has led to people who have committed murder, people who have committed rape, people who have committed serious violent offences..."
Home Office minister Vernon Coaker, Today programme, 7 May 2009
The Background
Civil rights groups today criticised plans to hold DNA profiles of almost a million innocent people on a database for up to 12 years.
But Coaker was keen to stress that hanging on to the DNA profiles of innocent people had yielded significant results. FackCheck examines the minister's boast.
The analysis
About 4.5m people are on the DNA database, of which up to 850,000 are estimated to be from innocent people, those who had swabs taken but were never convicted of a crime.
The Home Office says that between April 1998 and September 2008, there were over 390,000 crimes with DNA matches, providing the police with a lead on the possible identity of the offender.
But how many of these leads were related to DNA taken from innocent people, and as Coaker hinted, how many murderers and rapists were brought to justice?
The Home Office told FactCheck: "Between May 2001 and December 2005 approximately 200,000 DNA profiles held on the database which would previously have had to be removed before legislation was passed in 2001 because the person was acquitted or charges dropped, resulted in nearly 8,500 profiles from some 6,290 individuals being linked with crime scene profiles, involving nearly 14,000 offences.
"These included 114 murders, 55 attempted murders, 116 rapes, 68 sexual offences, 119 aggravated burglaries and 127 relating to the supply of controlled drugs."
This is what Coaker based his claim on, but these figures relate to detections not convictions. That means police leads on investigations rather than actual prison sentences.
The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), which oversees the management and integrity of the database, confirmed this distinction.
A NPIA spokesman said: "The key phrase is 'linked with' and there are no figures centrally on how many innocent profiles led to actual convictions."
So while Coaker has implied that lots of criminals have been brought to book by retaining the profiles of innocent people, the agency that looks after the database admits there are no central figures to prove his point.
The sheer weight of numbers suggests that previously innocent people will have been tracked down and convicted of other crimes via their DNA, but there remains a distinct lack of evidence as to how many.
The verdict
Undoubtedly, some people who were once innocent of a crime will have been caught and convicted due to their DNA being held on the database.
But, the fact the agency which looks after the database says there are no figures available to prove this lessens the government's strength of argument somewhat.
FactCheck rating: 2
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