Debate contribution: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on 2 June 2026.

MLA: Mrs Naomi Long
Party at the time: Alliance Party
Date: 2 June 2026
Type: Debate contribution (made as a minister)
Business: Executive Committee Business
Heading: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5584195

Text

I thank the Member for giving way. I do not disagree with her about young people being brought into the formal justice system prematurely when there are alternative disposals. That is something that we will debate later on, as part of amendments to the Bill. However, the retention of DNA does not institutionalise or retain a young person in the justice system; the DNA is simply kept on record. If a young person goes on not to offend again, that data will never be relevant and will eventually be expunged, in most cases, after five years. It is only when the young person continues to offend that the data becomes relevant. While I agree that contact with the formal justice system such as incarceration or other forms of custody are detrimental to young people's rehabilitation, the retention of DNA and fingerprint data has no meaningful impact on young people's ability to be rehabilitated after having committed offences. Indeed, I believe that it is helpful to young people who could be potentially eliminated from police enquiries who might otherwise, because of previous offending behaviour, be the focus of police enquiries when certain offences occur.

193 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.05 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.94).
No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.03	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.03	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.01	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.03	No
Controversy escalation	0.03	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.94	Yes
Overall judgement	0.05	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	1.00
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.00
Adopts it	0.00

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
No identity-related subject	0.61
Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups	0.29
Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues	0.07
Another identity-related subject	0.03
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:43 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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