Proposals to relax fingerprinting restrictions and allow police to question suspects until the time of their trial—even after charges have been made—have been attacked by lawyers and civil rights campaigners.
The Home Office plans, laid out in a consultation paper reviewing the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 last week, also float the idea of allowing police to site short-term detention centres in shopping malls.
The government says existing rules, which require suspects to be taken to police stations, take too long and clog up space in police custody. The cells could hold suspects for up to four hours to enable fingerprinting, photographing and DNA sampling.
DNA samples and fingerprints could be taken from those suspected of petty crimes. Liberty policy director Gareth Crossman says: “Six years ago, DNA sampling was about combating serious crime. Today dropping litter is proposed as a lame excuse for an ever-growing national DNA database.”
The consultation looks at areas of police work ranging from how suspects are bailed to how stop-and-search operations are conducted.
Criminal
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