Portfolio committee adopts DNA Bill

THE portfolio committee on police adopted the report on the Criminal Law Forensic Procedure Amendment Bill without amendments yesterday.

The committee last week adopted the bill, confirming all clauses and sections applicable to it had been approved before moving forward for parliamentary approval.

The purpose of the bill is to make provisions for the full implementation of the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Act, 2013.

When enacted, the act would compel the government to take DNA samples of schedule 8 (rape, murder, human trafficking, robbery, and culpable homicide) offenders and add them to the convicted offenders’ database.

It also proposed removal of the time limitation on the taking of buccal samples from already convicted and imprisoned offenders and imposed reporting requirements on the national police commissioner and correctional services.

Action Society director of community safety Ian Cameron said the organisation was extremely pleased with the progress: “Action Society cannot emphasise the urgency of getting this amendment finalised enough.

“The approval of this is long overdue. The longer it takes for this amendment to get finalised, the more murderers and rapists get released without their DNA samples being taken,” he said.

Cameron said almost 100 000 violent criminals had been released since 2016 without submitting a DNA sample.

“Taking DNA samples of all convicted schedule 8 offenders is not something that should be debated,” he said.

“DNA speaks for itself and it is one of the best crime-fighting tools that we have,” Cameron said.