The police are to set up “retail jails” on high streets and in busy shopping malls to detain yobs and other offenders for up to four hours under Home Office proposals published yesterday.
Talks are under way to open the first of these short-term holding cells in Selfridges department store on Oxford Street in London. The five purpose-built rooms would be smaller than normal cells and made of Perspex so that suspects are visible.
The police will also gain sweeping extensions to their powers to take fingerprints and DNA samples from anyone they suspect of committing a crime. In addition, the proposals appear to lift the barriers that separate the police fingerprint and DNA databases from the new national identity register.
Ground floor perfumery, stationery … and cells (Guardian)
SIGNS OF SOMETHING OR OTHER
Presidential Prayer Team alert: “Pray for Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff and his team as they work on development of a national identification card, asking God to guide them with His wisdom.”
From Wonkette: Lieberman & Chertoff Will Bravely Destroy Internet
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