DNA swabs for anyone arrested

Dillon made the announcement at the Point Fortin East Secondary School during the Conversations with the Prime Minister event on Tuesday night.

“Starting off later on this year, you will see that anyone arrested would be placed in that DNA bank.” Section 13(1) of the DNA Act states “Subject to subsection (2), a police officer or qualified person shall take a non-intimate sample from a person without his consent where— (a) the person is a suspect, detainee or accused.” Dillon said government hired a DNA custodian earlier this year after “nothing happened” since the Act was passed in 2012. “We are going to start it with the prisoners because by law, we can swab any prisoner within our institution right now.” He said this is one pillar in a five-pillared approach to tackling the crime problem which he described as being “multi-dimensional.” He said the strengthening of the predictive, deterrence, detection, prosecution and rehabilitation pillars will strengthen an already improving national security framework.

On the issue of kidnappings, he said there was a reduction with there being three in 2015, three in 2016, and one so far in 2017.

This was said two days before a support staff member of the Chinese Embassy was kidnapped at about 7.30am yesterday and held for a ransom of $20,000. The police were successful in rescuing the victim and arresting the suspected kidnapper three hours later.