�Church leaders have coupled campaigns chemical group Black Mental Health UK in welcoming the findings of the Human Genetics Commission (HGC) Citizens' Inquiry into DNA database calling for the removal of all free DNA from the felonious database and for an independent body to replace the Home Office and Police as custodians of the database.
Responding to the HGC recommendations Matilda MacAttram, managing director Black Mental Health UK said: 'the Human Genetics Commission has done first-class work in allowing people to get their say on the expansion of the database. The mention of the concerns that community leadership have over the disproportionate numbers innocent people of African Caribbean origin has to particular date largely been ignored. This is especially worrying given that 57% of all innocent DNA taken in London comes from this group. We look onward seeing the removal of all sinless DNA from the database as it really shouldn't have been there in the first place.'
Pastor Ade Omooba of Coherent and Cohesive Voice said: 'processes surrounding this database hold to be transparent, right now many people do not even know if they are on it or non. The HCG suggestions of a run to raise awareness around this a good thing. I living calls to take all responsibility for the database away from the law and the Home Office, given the recent data losses we have seen of child benefit records, and sensitive security intelligence service which was left on a train.
'This database has led to the wholesale criminalizing of our communities . With 77% of our young men already on it and over half the innocent DNA on the database having been taken from our communities, the way in which it was being used was in effect undermining all the work the churches are doing to foster community cohesion. We spat the Human Genetics Commissions recommendations that all innocent people should be remote from the database and an independent body outside of the police become the custodians of the database. This could not have come sooner ,' Pastor Desmond Hall, hot seat of Christians Together in Bent aforesaid.
The HGC recommendations are welcome because this information in the wrong manpower is far worse than any of the high profile data losses we have recently seen. The implications for those using mental health services have not really been addressed at all, there ar a lot of people who were unwell world Health Organization are on the database and don't know it. Lack of knowledge around this database and how it has been put-upon has light-emitting diode to millions of impeccant people organism added to it without any sorting of coordinated reponse from the Church.
e welcome recommendations around an knowingness raising movement because people need to know more than about this before they will even know if their civil liberties are being infringed.,' Pastor Rev Paul Grey of New Testament Church aforementioned.
Black Mental Health UK is a human rights campaigns mathematical group established?� to direct the over representation of African Caribbean's within procure psychiatric maintenance and raise awareness to address the stigma associated with mental health.
African Caribbean's ar 50% more likely to enter the system via the?criminal justice system of rules or the police. 44% more likely to be sectioned, 29% more likely to be forcibly restrained, 50% more likely to be located in seclusion and make up 30%[1] of in-patients on medium secure psychiatric wards despite having similar rates of mental illness as British ovalbumin people.
Black Mental Health UK are working to see a reduction in the demise?rates of patients detained under the Mental Health Act which saw a 40% increase in 2007 to over 300 causalities.
57% of innocent DNA samples taken in London are from the pitch-black?population[2] despite this group devising up 2.9%[3] of the national population[4].
27 % of the intact black population are on the NDNAD[5] and 77 %. of young black men ar on the NDNAD[6] compared to 9 % of all Asians [7] and 6 % of the white population[8].
Click here to read A Citizen's Inquiry into the Forensic Use of DNA and the National DNA Database
[1] Mental Health Act Commission. (2007) Count Me In Census 2006, 23 March 2007. Mental Health Act Commission
[2] Lyn Featherstone 'What do the guiltless have to fear' article (2006)
[3]ONS (Office of National Statistics) 2001 census
[4] ONS (Office of National Statistics) 2001 nosecount
[5] They Work For you (Feb 2008)
Black Health UKhttp://www.blackmentalhealth.org.uk
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