Sex offender alerts plan launched

[BrilloPad]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7612315.stm

Essential tool or unnecessary red tape?

Personally I don't like the part that says "an indication that the individual is suspected of being a danger to children" - what does that mean?

[OwlHoot]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7612315.stm

Essential tool or unnecessary red tape?

Personally I don't like the part that says "an indication that the individual is suspected of being a danger to children" - what does that mean?

Probably where a kid has made an unsubstantiated allegation against one of their teachers.

You can't be too careful ...

[Bob Dalek]

As Frankie Boyle said on TV, "The number of pensioners has now overtaken the number of teenagers. What a horrific prospect for the nation's paedophiles! No wonder Gary Glitter didn't want to come back!"

[BrilloPad]

Probably where a kid has made an unsubstantiated allegation against one of their teachers.

You can't be too careful ...

ahh yes - teacher tries to make child do work. child gets revenge.up 84% last year I believe?

that sort of thing makes tracing the genuine complaints harder.

[Advocate]

These ideas all stem from the misguided premise that "If it saves just one child's live then it's worth it"

That statement is flawed, as much as it is unpleasant to quantify, a child's life has a value and the effects of protecting children (e.g. not allowing parents to take pictures of their children at the school sports day) has a cost. The value of a child's life rarely out weighs the cost of implementing knee jerk reactions to "protect the children"

It's worth pointing out that 'cost' and 'value' aren't necessarily monetary amounts. I hope most of us on here are not too liberal that we understand this premise of cost and value of life and we don't get caught up in the 'think of the children' mentality!

The main issue is that people read it as "If it saves MY childs life..."

The extreme of the saving a child's life argument is that we could keep all children in a box and not allow any contact with them until they reach the age of consent. The cost of this to both a child's well being and upbringing and to a parents rights as a parent greatly outweigh the value gained by the scheme (several children's lives/sanity and dignity saved vs loss of parent/child bonding etc.).

I agree this subject is not tasteful and has a huge taboo surrounding it.

I don my asbestos jacket!

[xoggoth]

Some accusation in the absence of any evidence should not be enough to blight someone's life. Saw the other day that the number of teachers suspended has rocketed. I don't think this is so much that more teachers are abusing kids, just more repulsive little tulipes are making false allegations.

[Moscow Mule]

A lot of this comes from the fact that parents are unwilling (or in some cases unable) to take responsibility for the eduction of their children.

I was taught at an early age not to speak to strangers and learn how to run home quickly, and yet I was still allowed to play in the woods for hours at a time outside of parental supervision - if any parent allowed such a thing these days the social services might well be involved!!!