[Z]

Do you agree with the concept of having a national DNA register? Everyone in the country has to give a sample of their DNA so that it can be held on a database that police can use to cross reference DNA taken from crime scenes in order to catch criminals quickly. Should the database only hold DNA samples for a certain length of time so that there isn't just a database of everyone in the country's DNA which could be abused at any time? Should it only contain DNA of previous offenders?

It came to prominence after the murder of Sally Anne Bowman; police eventually caught her killer 9 months after her murder after he was involved in a bar fight and it matched to the DNA found at the scene of her dead body. There have been debates about whether or not police should be allowed to hold onto any DNA - the police argued that if there had been a national database they would have caught him immediately, as there wasn't one, it took them the best part of a year to catch him and over two years before he was prosecuted and sentenced to jail. What do you think? Would you donate your DNA willingly or would you object to it? Why or why not?