Description

Following flawed statistical evidence in a Home Office consultation document 'Keeping the Right People on the DNA Database: Science and Public Protection' (May 2009), a team of researchers at Lancaster University reviewed the 2009 government policy on the retention of DNA samples.

Their findings were presented directly to the Home Office and led to a new policy report ('DNA Retention Policy: Re-Arrest Hazard Rate Analysis') and a major revision of the scientific work on DNA retention.

The research was led by Professor Brian Francis and Professor Keith Soothill and was carried out by the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods/Lancaster-Warwick-Stirling (LWS) node as part of the programme 'Developing statistical modelling in the social sciences Phase 2'.