Fear the Tabloids

[kneeshooter]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5097102.stm

Top Police Officer makes sense, then the Home Office jump in and deny that politicians are vote-chasers. Or something like that anyway.

Comments

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

He's right. Frankly I've been very worried since John Reid took over, I think he's far scarier in many ways than Blunkett.

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

I'm not especially impressed. I don't think there's any question that this is media-driven votes-whoring. I recall that we're living in a country where a doctor specialising in paediatrics was hounded from home by the mob because they thought that "paediatrician" qas something to do with wrong-touching.

I could rant more about their willingness to make information easily available to "the public" as long as it doesn't have anything to do with their own pecadillos. I might even wonder what exactly the purpose of the information is - is it so that you can move house if you're unhappy about there being a child sex offender living nearby? Given that a large percentage of child sex-offences are apparently committed by family members or people known to the family, is the point of the register to let people know who they should and should not make eye-contact with in the supermarket? Why is it restricted to child sex-offenders? Wouldn't women like to know if it's safe for them to walk the streets in a three mile area of their home?

For that matter are we giving up all pretence that one of the points of criminal justice is to rehabilitate offenders? Because to me this register says clearly "they're probably going to do it again and theres not much we can do about it. Lock up your children! Or better yet, murder them because we know how to deal with murderers."

I'd be interested to see what the response would be to a system that lets anyone check up on every single conviction or court appearance someone has made regardless of whether it has to do with childsex or not. There's a database I could happily spend hours surfing.

Ahem. I'll shush now.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

"Given that a large percentage of child sex-offences are apparently committed by family members or people known to the family"

I don't want to get into typing huge post dealing with everything that's wrong with this idiotic 'Sarah's Law' idea but I just thought I'd say that this bit of what you said is dead right. Child protection workers have been making that point a lot. the *vast* majority of child abuse is committed within a child's circle of family and friend, attacks by strangers are a tiny, tiny percentage. All this hoo-haa is ignoring the real problem, drawing attention, and funds away from it in order to appease newspapers and hysterical parents. People who really think children should be able to live free from the fear of abuse should think about that rather than screaming at bastions of toy-town democray such as radio phone-ins, newspaper letter pages and ridiculous daytime TV discussion shows.

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

All this hoo-haa is ignoring the real problem, drawing attention, and funds away from it in order to appease newspapers and hysterical parents.

I was watching the news on the tellybox last night and thinking just this.

[skinfitz.livejournal.com]

Speaking to BBC's Radio Five Live, Mr Mahmood denied a claim by Mr Grange that Home Office officials met tabloid newspaper editors to discuss policy.

That is so Home Office - 'one thing mentioned in the article is wrong so therefore the whole thing is wrong'. translation: 'The HO met with tabloids to discuss [something] and the issue of policy came up' or maybe they didn't meet at all, but they quite obviously ARE being driven by the media.

Ok - my problem with this whole thing - people are going to die.

Long version - when the US started doing this, they used Windows NT 4 servers that were vulnerable to hacking using a well known IIS exploit. It was possible to remotely insert any details into the database of some states.

Now, what would happen if someone were to have a grudge against you and was able to insert your name and address into this register? Considering also that a large number of people were incorrectly listed as criminals by the Criminal Records Bureau it's an instant witch-hunt machine waiting to happen that will no doubt result in innocent people being killed by mobs.

Effectively what it boils down to is would you trust your life to Government IT strategy?

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Further coverage:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5094186.stm

[averylaterabbit.livejournal.com]

I was saying to Ian the other day that Paedophilia is the 21st century Witch hunt.

[curlwomble.livejournal.com]

Except that there *are* peadophiles who are a danger to kids, whereas there were no witches that communed with the Devil. This nugget of reality in the hysteria merelty serves to focus and amplify, of course.

[averylaterabbit.livejournal.com]

I saw on the news 2 years ago a doctor had her car kicked and battered to pieces because it had "Pediatrician" written on the side.

At the slightest hint of a suggestion, our hackles rise, we point fingers, and reach for our pitchforks.