The Road To Hell
http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/fail_32.png
We should remember that this mess was kicked off my a very bad case of 'no one doing what they should'. The school caretaker was subject to a number of reports of 'a highly dubious nature' but no one managed to follow them up. The few reports of record 'somewhere', remained in the place that they had been deposited and. those who could and SHOULD have made witness statements declined and so forth.
As a result of these clear and blatant failings a whole raft of 'it should never happen again steps' were taken. Now we have some of the results,
- human failings can NEVER be stopped by legislation
- the more legislation of dubious clarity the greater the risk of more human failings
- since doubt and hysteria have now been created and multiplied, it now breeds unchecked.
Sadly rational analysis has not been a feature of the subsequent steps, (not helped by e.g. those unable to tell the difference between a paediatric practitioner and a paedophile). Human failings to follow procedure can only be limited by thorough designs of systems, helpful hint build in some fail safes, like checking on either an automatic basis, (best) or a manual check and sign off basis, (less good but could be workable).
So what was created was not a lot different to the Nazi party, or anyone of the 'spy on your neighbour systems so loved by dictators.
The crimes that took place, (remember as a result of human and system failures) were rightly condemned as terrible and unacceptable, but the subsequent 'soft' crimes that were perpetrated have been almost as bad. The children who are left to wander the streets least any stranger trying to help might be stigmatised, worse the vindictive child or adult who can create a whisper and gain revenge for some past slight. There was a time when the legal system relied on evidence to resolve issues of crime, not any more.
I doubt that the genie can be put back into the bottle but who cares about the law actually working to sort out crime, no one in the crime business that is certain, they make too much money with the present (non) system.