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Real Midsomer Murder all men in village to be DNA tested
bryemycaz
Posts: 11,738 Forum Member
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The murder of a woman who was bludgened to death with a hammer in a Village in East Sussex last year. Has hit a stumbling block so the police are asking all men in the local area over the age of 17 to be DNA tested to rule them out.
Why only the men? Women are quite capable of attacking with a hammer should they wish.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2894837/Mystery-Midsomer-Murderer-savage-killing-baffled-police-middle-class-mother-bludgeoned-death-bed-idyllic-village-One-year-local-men-DNA-tested.html
Why only the men? Women are quite capable of attacking with a hammer should they wish.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2894837/Mystery-Midsomer-Murderer-savage-killing-baffled-police-middle-class-mother-bludgeoned-death-bed-idyllic-village-One-year-local-men-DNA-tested.html
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If they found some unknown DNA at the scene or on what they believe to be the murder weapon they can run tests on it and it will tell them whether it belonged to a male or female. I'm guessing they did this and found a man's DNA there.
In this article, I will argue that this shared assumption is wrong. Although generally quite reliable (particularly in comparison with other forms of evidence often used in criminal trials), DNA tests are not now and have never been infallible. Errors in DNA testing occur regularly. DNA evidence has caused false incriminations and false convictions, and will continue to do so. Although DNA tests incriminate the correct person in the great majority of cases, the risk of false incrimination is high enough to deserve serious consideration in debates about expansion of DNA databases. The risk of false incrimination is borne primarily by individuals whose profiles are included in government databases (and perhaps by their relatives). Because there are racial, ethnic and class disparities in the composition of databases, the risk of false incrimination will fall disproportionately on members of the included groups.8,9
Gross invasion of privacy. The police can have my DNA when, and only when, they have reasonable grounds to believe they need it.
Potential for incorrect incrimination. DNA evidence is not 100% accurate.
People don't commit crimes thinking they'll get caught.
It was a local murder by local folk.
Mistakes would be made if samples somehow got mixed up on a very rare occasion. I don't trust the authorities to be 100% careful with which samples they would use.
"We didnt burn him".
In what world should they be allowed to treat a whole community along the open road as suspects and call on everyone to "rule themselves out". That's the inverse of how criminal investigation and prosecution is supposed to work. You might as well say DNA database people when they are born for such an eventuality.
In fact I suspect they did not even screen the blood DNA for age and they're just quoting 17 because there is a law against pulling in minors with a drift net like that, which by some loophole does not cover adults.
I"m sure they would retest you to make sure.
I'd be willing to give DNA to be kept on record.
They may learn more from who doesn't volunteer or who agrees but avoids actually going through with it than from the DNA samples gathered.
I think everyone should be put in prison at birth. Zero crime then.
Thing is could we trust the police not to make an error with such a large database? There have been cases where the innocent were jailed because of a DNA error.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/crime-courts/las-vegas-police-reveal-dna-error-put-wrong-man-prison
That's up to you.
They may even be able narrow it down without the person going in they can tell family members so if the person brother went in they may at least find out he's related and look in that direction
Last time I looked, it was being touted as 'one in a billion' chance of an unrelated match and if we take it as being truly random then the birthday paradox calculations apply. Unfortunately it's not completely random and you can spot who's related to whom, and all sort of other things so I venture to suggest that 'one in a billion' is complete cobblers put out there by the salesmen.
And the point about unplanned violence being entirely unaffected by whether or not someone thinks they are going to get caught. Even planned violence is frequently unaffected by this thought.
And the rather important related point that people should be deciding not to commit a crime in the first place because they know it is a bad thing to do.
That's true but they don't
When The Purge came out I read a thread (can't recall if it was here or somewhere else) with people talking about what crimes they would commit if it was a real thing and people were saying murder and rape mostly even if they were joking I find it quite scary and if they were not isn't very scary to think they only thing stopping them is they don't want to go to prison rather than they don't want to kill/rape someone.
Yes, just the announcement could get someone worried enough to react differently.
Aside from a dystopian/horror film and a bunch of people acting really hard on a discussion thread, it's a reasonably safe thing to say that the vast majority of people refrain from criminal activity because they know it is not a good thing to do.
The best way to ensure people don't turn out to be criminals is to ensure a decent education and upbringing as far as possible, and any that still turn out bad can be tested because they obviously carry the 'criminal gene'. As opposed to the selfish one, which whilst being a bit antisocial isn't actually against the law. Yet.
I'm sure there are people who would commit crime if they thought they could get away with it, and I wouldn't bet its only a small majority either. Most I'm sure would draw the line way before murder.
And while upbringing / education is an important factor, how do we identify a good one? And how do we even determine bad? Your explanation sounds very logical but way too many grey areas in reality. And criminal gene, does this exist?
If there was a complete database of everyone how long do you think it would take before the governments decides it could make a few quid by selling it to private companies? Insurance companies would love to get their hands on that sort of data as they could use it to increase insurance premiums on anyone with a genetic medical condition.
You might find that your car insurance suddenly doubles because there is an above average risk of heart disease in your family.