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Gary Pugh, the director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers ACPO, wants to start screening children for criminal traits at a young age. Pugh said:

"If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large... the younger the better."

Further, he wants all primary school age children on a DNA database. Such an activity would be in effect the cataloguing of every future generation.

This is wrong for so many reasons. Science fiction meets Nazi social Darwinism meets 21st Century phrenology.

If we ever needed a reason to send the ACPO members on a winter holiday to Snowdon this is it. Then again, if we had a mechanism to screen for dickheads, we could have spotted Pugh earlier and given him help.