FORMER director of public prosecution (DPP), Kent Pantry, has suggested the securing of DNA samples and the fingerprinting of all Jamaicans as well as the installation of security cameras at strategic points across the island to help bolster the island's crime-fighting efforts.

"It may be that the time has come for DNA and fingerprints be obtained at birth so as to increase the forensic capabilities," he said. "Witnesses are threatened, witness are afraid to come to court and we are unable to rely highly on testimony time and time again. So if at birth the DNA was taken and the fingerprints were taken, at an early stage and kept in a database, when investigations are carried out and the police find fingerprints in those places they could go into the database and match them with the already given data."

Ken Pantry (centre), Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Law School and former director of public prosecutions, speaks with Kathryn Thompson, president of the Kingston chapter of the Lay Magistrate Association of Jamaica and vice-president Alfred St P Grant during the Kingston chapter's annual banquet at the Hilton Hotel in Kingston Saturday night. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)

Pantry, who was addressing the Lay Magistrate Association of Jamaica's, Kingston Chapter's annual banquet at the Hilton Hotel in Kingston Saturday night, said this would allow the police to solve more murders and make it easier for witnesses who are afraid to give evidence.

Pantry said instead of relying solely on witnesses, the police would be able to use other forensic and technical evidence.
At the same time, the former DPP - who is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Law School - said security cameras would have assisted the police in their search for 11-year-old Ananda Dean whose decomposed body was found in bushes on Sunday, more than a week after she went missing.

"This could have possibly been of great help in the case of the missing school girl ... if we had security cameras in several location in Half-Way-Tree and in the bus park," he said, adding that supporting legislation would have to be implemented, requiring developers to provide the cameras for plazas and other public locations before their development plans are approved.

"The government would then be required to provide other cameras for other areas, but it would be supplemented, they would not have to provide all the cameras," Pantry explained.

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