ALLOWING the police to keep hold of DNA samples from people who have never been convicted of a crime is an issue which is always going stir up strong opinions.
There has been a lot of discussion over the last couple of weeks about the rights and wrongs of Scotland's police building up a DNA database. I know some people have fears over the impact on human rights but I believe the benefit to society of holdin
g on to such samples outweighs those concerns.
That's why Scotland's police forces are backing proposed legislation to bring the country in line with England and Wales, which since 2001 have allowed their police forces to hold on to DNA samples and fingerprints from everyone they arrest.
The most compelling argument for this change in law is that it will help us to catch criminals.
This isn't some kind of theoretical forecast - we know from Home Office statistics that since 2001, when the law changed in England and Wales, police forces there have solved 10,000 offences using DNA that under the current law in Scotland would have to be destroyed.
This includes 88 murders, 45 attempted murders, 116 rapes, 62 other sexual offences, 91 aggravated burglaries and 94 offences of the supply of controlled drugs.
If this law was changed so that police here could keep samples and fingerprints taken from everyone either arrested and in custody or detained on suspicion of committing an imprisonable offence, it would vastly increase our database of DNA.
At a crime scene, forensic teams can be confronted with a vast number of different DNA samples. One strand of any police investigation will be to work through those samples and find matches for potential suspects, potential witness and potential red herrings which then can be eliminated from inquiries at an earlier stage.
Having a bigger pool of samples obviously means more chances of more matches.
And it also means being able to do this far more quickly, both saving taxpayers' money by saving officers' time and potentially getting a dangerous criminal off the streets faster.
There are certain safeguards which we believe should be put in place with this legislation.
Written consent should be obtained from anybody who provides a DNA sample or a fingerprint on a voluntary basis - for instance, from neighbours after a murder - to be compared against samples or prints from the crime scene. At the moment, different police forces have different policies on this issue. The DNA would then only be kept until the individual was eliminated from investigation at which point the sample would be destroyed. We, at the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (Acpos), would also like to see the range of uses for the DNA database clearly categorised.
Crime-fighting would obviously be one, but identifying the dead after a major incident or disaster would also be another.
We would also like to see the law allow police to take and hold on to DNA samples from registered and non-registered sex offenders which we currently don't have.
DNA sampling is relatively new and some convicted sex offenders from many years ago may not have a sample on the DNA database. At the moment, samples can only be taken when someone is arrested or up to a month after they are convicted. Extending this time, perhaps to cover the whole period a sex offender is on the register, means we could retrospectively gather samples from those we don't currently have.
After the sex offender has been taken off the register, the sample is retained indefinitely.
Not only would this help us to monitor sex offenders, but it would also stop such people exploiting the differences in the two countries' laws.
For example somebody being arrested for an alleged rape in England and Wales and subsequently found not guilty would have their DNA sample retained. In Scotland that person's sample would be destroyed. If that person in Scotland then went on to commit a crime we would be starting from scratch whereas our colleagues south of the Border would have an immediate identification.
Taking these "retrospective" samples will also help with "cold case" reviews, where officers re-examine an old, unsolved crime.
There will, of course, be those who still have fears over human rights. But it is important to remember that the House of Lords recently rejected a claim that keeping DNA samples and profiles violates the European Convention on Human Rights in cases where an individual is later acquitted or charges are dropped.
And there have been no cases of miscarriage of justice as a result of the position taken by the governments and police forces in England and Wales.
It is for all these reasons, therefore, that the Acpos is asking the Scottish Executive to bring the country's law on this issue into line with the rest of the UK.
• Paddy Tomkins is the chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police and Acpos vice-chairman for Crime Business Area and Lead on DNA Issues
