The British are debating an outstandingly unproductive, potentially destructive idea: DNA-tracking youngsters.
Our unproductive and sometimes murderous system of public and private teen Boot Camps came from Great Britain amid empirical warnings that they didn't work.
They still don't work, as the National Mental Health Assocation says unequivocally.
Yet we've enshrined Boot Camps as though they were a benevolent industry.
So I'm just a little bothered that another, at least equally bad British idea may eventually take root here.
Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) make it plain that a big chunk of law enforcement there is hungry for permission to put this brand of DNA profiling right to work.
Forces of British good sense are pushing back, as Roger Graef of The Guardian did in his blog The usual suspects: Listing at-risk children on the DNA database risks breeding anger, resentment and defiance.
Shami Chakrabarti director of the British civil rights group Liberty
takes a somewhat harder swing that the proposal, saying:
Targeting innocent children to expand the DNA database is the Government playing the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Any child who is stopped by police, even if under 10, can have his DNA taken and retained for life without being charged or cautioned.
If the Government wants a National DNA Database, they should say so and hold a public debate, not pick on our kids who can’t fight back.
I wonder how effective sound arguments will be against rightist efforts when our turn comes.
| boot_camps | british | dna | dna_tracking | teen_boot_camps | tough_love |
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