A symposium at the House of Commons on the over representation of innocent African Caribbean's  on the national criminal DNA database will be the subject of discussion on Monday 21st July from 7.00-800pm in committee room 5.

Open to the general public this meeting will look at why  57% of all innocent DNA in London taken from black people and community leaders are concerns that the National DNA Criminal Database is criminalising a community by stealth.

In a month that has seen the introduction of a private members Bill calling for the removal of all innocent people off the database, this public meeting, hosted by Sarah Teather MP, aims to raise awareness about and issue which touches the lives of every Black Briton in the UK.

Organised by the campaigns group Black Mental Health UK, in association with Gene Watch, 100 Black Men and Christian's Together in Brent, this meeting represents the last opportunity to engage with Government over this issue before parliament's summer recess.

This public meeting, which is open to the community, will also look at how innocent mental health patients have also been caught in the surveillance net.

Government figures show that 77% of young black men are on the database, compared with 9% of Asians and just 6%. of the white population. Findings from the Home Office offending report shows that black people are actually less likely to committed a crime than their white counterparts. 

With over half a million names on the database either false, misspelt or incorrect, there are also concerns about the security of the data given the Government’s recent high profile data losses.

The UK has the largest National DNA Database in the world, with 4.5 million profiles set to be held by the Government by 2010.There are currently 500,000 people on the database who have no current conviction, caution, formal warning or reprimand.‘If someone is black, their details are three times more likely to be stored on the database than if they are white.

In a world where much crime goes undetected, a small skewing of police behaviour leads to a large discrepancy in outcomes for different ethnic and racial groups… It is time we broke the cycle,’ Sarah Teather MP said.

‘We have to raise awareness about these issues in our churches, we are a critical mass  who need to speak out with one voice as this needs to be addressed. Just being on that database suggests that you are involved in criminal activity.

These statistics suggestion is that black men are criminals and this is not the case. This goes against the original purpose of the database, which was  to keep records of convicted criminals . Something needs to be done as the Government may change the rules on how this technology used which may go against us in the future’, Bishop Wayne Malcolm Christian Life City Chair in Hackney East London.

‘If you want the BME communities to trust the police and the establishment then they must be open and transparent. What are the reasons for storing such large numbers of innocent peoples DNA?  It undermines community cohesion and a lot of good work that has been done .  This has to be dealt ,’ Pastor Desmond Hall, Christian Together in Brent‘The original intention was to keep the DNA of criminals who have been convicted of a crime, what is purpose behind compiling such a large database? This in no way helps with community cohesion. In fact to learn that 77% of young black men already have their DNA on this database even though a large percentage of them have never committed a crime in their lives does the opposite,’ Pastor Ade Omooba Coherent and Cohesive Voice said..