News & Press
Runnymede responds to the Home Office consultation ‘Keeping the right people on the DNA database’.
11 August 2009
Runnymede submitted its response to the Home Office consultation on the National DNA Database. The lack of public debate on the database in the 14 years of its existence is lamentable. The consultation is therefore timely, but the lack of consideration of the gross over-representation of black people on the database is alarming.
Read Runnymede's consultation response.
There are no measures to address the disproportionate presence of black people - and particularly young black men - on the database.
- 10 years on from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, it is clear that there are still unequal outcomes for different ethnic groups in the criminal justice system. The gross over-representation of black people on the NDNAD is one of the many serious consequences of this. At present, no Race Equality Impact Assessment has been conducted.
- The criminalisation of black people in Britain has a long and ugly history, and the extreme over-representation of black people on the NDNAD represents yet another weight on the scale. We are alarmed at the total lack of consideration given to this issue in the consultation document.
The evidence base on which the Home Office is proposing to establish its retention policy is poor and methodologically opaque.
- The proposed policies undermine the most basic principle in criminal trial - that everyone is innocent until proved guilty.
- The use of evidence in the consultation document implies that the Government regards a substantial part of black children, and the overwhelming majority of young black men, to be potential criminals.
