Home Office opens sex offender files in pilot scheme

RE: Hmmm

Couldn't agree more. The lack of discipline these days is disgraceful, a proper clip round the ear is exactly what these kids need.

Worrying...

With these government databases full of 'potential offenders' it makes me wonder how long we have to wait until it'll be possible to arrest people for 'pre-crime'.

Ah, the joys of living in Police State Britannia.

(no title)

What is limited about finding parents who are happy to ask about anyone on the request of somebody else?

What defines whether this pilot scheme is a success? Is it along the lines of a "Red Ken trial scheme", whereby any result is deemed a success? (In his case, less congestion in London, don't care about anywhere else it's been displaced = success, or same congestion, more incoming finance = success, or end of the world with sightings of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse = fewer cars = success.)

Surely the case has already been made that leaking this type of information outside of the authorities, is a bad thing? Misplaced feeling of security when handing over control of one's kids to someone not yet listed. Potential vigilante activity against those found to be on the list, ensuring the listees drop out of public view. etc. etc. etc.

And the NSPCC's attempt to turn this into a "parents must not control their kids" discussion is surely beneath contempt.

NSPCC idealism

“However, the Government has missed an important opportunity to make physical punishment of children illegal. It is an offence for adults to hit adults and children should be given equal or greater protection from assault."

However, we do have this concept of "reasonable force" in law where force is used in the prevention of a crime. We also have a police force which regularly uses force against protesters to deter dissent which is a far more apt analogy for parent and child than two civillian adults.

A smack on the wrist to let a kid know not to stick their fingers in the fireplace is safer than letting them get burnt to learn the lesson. I'd also like to meet the person who can have a logical, well-reasoned debate with a four year old.

As a toddler, I used to bite people. My parents told me not to, but I ignored them. One day my dad bit me back and I never did it again.

To protect my kids....

all I have to do is get the names of all the school teachers, parents of other kids, everyone who may plan to visit the school in the next 5 years, everyone in the neighbourhood and everyone working in or visitng any town/city I plan to take my kids to, then nip over to one of the places actually running this before submitting a 200 page list of names for checking. Oh, and I should also undertake to never smack my kids, even if they are turning out to be total criminals (which they aren't, because they get smacked on occasion :-P)

Alternatively, they could apply mimimum sentences with no possibility of release until the offender is fully reformed or castrated, and permanently branded just for safety. And, while they are at it, they should apply the whole scheme to all sex offenders, not just kiddy fiddlers. I think a victim of rape might quite like to know if they were working alongside a rapist.

Genius

So how long until the first parent complains that, despite having an individual checked, their child was still abused by them? This is NOT a foolproof system where anyone "clean" is not a risk. In fact, it is 100% pointless because every responsible parent should be equally careful of everyone - regardless of the result of this check.

Add to that - levels of re-offence (recidivism) for this type of crime is remarkably low, statistically a child is far more likely to be abused by someone without a prior conviction than someone with form.

Finally, the idea that anyone using false details to gain access to this information would be subject to police action - well, surely the horse has bolted by that point and the mob would already be on thier way to Peter Paedo's house with pitchforks at the ready.

P.S. It should be noted that, despite being attributed to Sarah Payne, this law would have done nothing to protect her from Roy Whiting.

officious interfering busybody cretin

“There must be a zero tolerance approach to the physical punishment of children. Allowing smacking to remain legal sends out the wrong message about our society’s attitude to violence."

I fully agree with the officious interfering busybody cretin here. It may be true that a total lack of discipline will result in our children becoming even more feral than before, but the government has just announced a crackdown on kids carrying knives, so it's not like they could do any harm.

Sounds ok in principle

But who wants to place bets that someone will both end up wrongly on the list due to 'computer error' , and then end up being murdered by so called vigilantes?

As for discipline, my daughters 16, I've never had to smack her, she's polite, doing well at college and cant stand people who swear.

My sons 14, I've had to smack him twice when he was little, it was that or him sticking things into electrical sockets. I've also thrown a glass of water over him once when he got into a temper and was being arrogant and not listening to a word being said, the shock of the water snapped him out of it.

Both enjoy my and my wifes company, we purposely put their PC's and games consoles downstairs so they don't end up shut away in their rooms, now my daughter has a laptop, there's nothing stopping her shutting herself away, but she prefers to use it in the living room and be in our company.

It's all to do with upbringing. Personally while I know what people mean when I see how some brats behave (I feel like thumping them), there's a huge difference between discipline and hitting. If you teach kids that in order to get them to obey you, you achieve this by inflicting physical pain on them, what are you really teaching them?

I was caned at school, made zero difference to my (or my friends) behaviour, it was seen as a sort of status symbol. My mum used to smack me over the head with her shoe if I didn't do what she wanted, the fact that she used to do this 2 or 3 times a week should show how well this worked for her.

Smacking

It isn't discipline that smacking is for (use of it as discipline can teach children that using violence to get your way is right).

What it IS is an immediate consequence of their actions.

As I've told one twat kid while I'm holding them up by their collar:

"There's a social contract thing going on here. I promise not to wallop you as long as you promise not to make me want to. If you're not going to hold up your end of the bargain, I'll not bother with mine."

When kids have thrown stones at me, I've thrown them back.

Guess what? I'm still free.

And, oddly enough, most of the kids in the area are fine with me. I treat them as real people (including all the bad shit) and they do respond. That includes the kids who kick the ball about in the street: they don't deliberately kick the ball at cars, they stop playing when a car is coming along and I don't see a problem. The people who DO see a problem get abuse from the kids. Maybe because these adults aren't treating the kids as people.

Just my theory.

No consent?

So I can just go to my local plod station, and ask if my neighbour is a sex offender, without getting the consent of my neighbour? Seems dodgy under the DPA to me, but IANAL.

Why can't this system use a simple consent form? If I wanted to hire someone to look after my kids, and if they then refused to give me consent, I'd doubt I'd be hiring them.

What next? Could I go to the local hospital, and ask to see the medical records of someone, in case they're diseased, without their consent, just saying I'm a parent??

Yet another nail in the coffin

In the past 10 years this Labour Government has totally F'd up this Country and made it into a police state. I do have an axe to grind in replying to this utterly stupid idea of the government. In my case the police mentioned to a third party that a search had been carried out of my property. Such search was a fishing trip. They neglected to tell the third party that the search had drawn a blank. From that third party, who was allegedly told not to say anything to anyone else, it spread throughout my friends and of course like chinese whispers the story changed as it moves onward. It has taken me 10 years to get an apology letter !!!!. I would not trust the police to see me across the road, they are a corrupt incompetent bunch in the main, made up of bullies and racists.

A question

The overlords...........sorry, 'government' of Britain allowing parents limited access to a database of sex offenders implies something, doesn't it? It implies that anyone with a postal address, a ZX-81 and/or a Swiss Army knife couldn't already get this information from the 'government'.

And, as we know from past events, that's simply not true.

..anybody notice the 'training' bit?

So much job creation for so little effect....

We've (US) got our offenders on-line. Not surprisingly the websites rarely show where they live because they've moved on so you do get the occasional case of mistaken identity (and despite you having to click through a license type page that says you won't use this information for vigilantism and stuff).

I don't go for violence against kids myself but sometimes a smack is the only way to get their attention. You're not trying to hurt them, you're trying to get the little bugger's attention. They're not rational, you see -- its one of the reasons why we don't give 4 year olds driver's licenses.

Nonsense

"It is an offense for adults to hit adults"

Anyone tell Lennox Lewis?

Government + Databases = ebay....

What's the current government record of keeping databases?

not that great. I bet within 6 months of this going live some stupid minister or police official will loose his laptop and guess what will be on it!!

The NotW will probably buy it off of the druggie who nicked it, who's just been released after a few weeks in the local HMP after beating up an OAP or stealing a car for the 100'th time for the cash to but a £10 bag of whatever to keep him high.

Next thing you know Weekly supplements with the full details of the offenders saying "now don't do anything illegal *Wink- Wink*.

I think I'm going to hide.

I thought you Brits were proof against this sort of thing I guess not be careful don't take a leak, don't give the kid a smack on the bottom for running in front of traffic or trying to fly off the second floor landing. Those love taps are so wild and poorly aimed they don't hurt they just scare "whats this, it's important I won't do that again (for a bit)". Everyone knows what real child abuse is it's ugly and it needs to be met with absolute intolerance the law knows as well and knows it's place and it's trying to get out it needs a good smack on the bottom. These pandering pols are playing with lives put them in their place as soon as you can I have no idea what will happen here in the states civil war comes to mind though, I am too old for that so I am going to hide.

Interestingly

Teachers are subjected to CRB checks to make sure that they are ok to work with children, the thing is that the children don't have to undertake CRB checks and these are the people most likely, in a school situation, to be sex offenders. A classic being, 16 year old box has sex with a 15 year and 10 month old girl, if they get caught, he is labelled a sex offender, the News of the Screws will publish his picture, his life is fucked. Somehow though, a 40 year old man can have sex with a 16 year old girl (who isn't his pupil), and providing there is consent this is legal. It's fucked up.

Ex Post Facto Law?

I'd be interested to see if this modification of the law actually breaches the human rights of convicted sex offenders. This clearly is a new deterrent and thus constitutes an increase in the punishment for anyone who has been convicted previously - all without judicial oversight or any form of consultation or protection for those offenders.

I know the popular tabloid image of sex offenders is that they are all evil criminal masterminds who can somehow manipulate and hypnotise their way into families in order to offend. Of course - once a sex offender always a sex offender, they just can't help themselves!

But, I expect the truth is - like most prior offenders - a lot of sex offenders deeply regret their past and are just trying to get on with a normal life as best they can. This new law will destroy their hopes of becoming decent, productive members of society. So what now for them? What is life without hope for a decent future? Unless this "experiment" is quashed there is going to be a combination of suicides, vigilante action and, most worryingly, offenders giving up on their rehabilitation and slipping back into old ways.

considering

how easy it is to end up on the register for nothing even remotely resembling a sex offence (urinating in public, ie hidden in a back alley at 3-4 in the morning) this is a very bad idea. I'm assuming that the actual crime committed will not be disclosed (because that would probably be a breach of data protection) but that the name/address of someone on the register for an "unspecified offence" could be handed out to all and sundry.

"If it saves one life"

But if one life is so important, what happens if the law causes the loss of one life? As in that guy in the states you mentioned. Or that OAP killed by a father "'cos he's a rapist and he might go for my boy"?

Re: Paediatrician vs paedophile thing

Is an urban legend.

Re: Re: Paediatrician vs paedophile thing

No, she really did exist, however, she wasn't directly assaulted but she was spat at, yelled at and her house got egged.

rubbish

Insteaf of potentially smacking children why not lock them all up inside padded cells so that they cannot hurt themselves. Then release them to the world at large at sixteen years old and see what happens.

Smacking

So, those of you in favour of hitting kids to discipline them - will you mind if someone else does it to your kids as well? No difference, is there?

@Mr Chris

So, those of you in favour of hitting kids to discipline them - will you mind if someone else does it to your kids as well?

I am not in favour of hitting kids, but I do agree that there are times it's the best way, if not the only way.

I'm talking of a slap that's not purposed to cause physical harm, but to remind the child of his childish position versus the adult. In most cases, like in school, that used to work wonderfully at my young years.

It was not the harm to be slapped, but the shame that did the lesson.

Mind you, when I was a child, we were explained that they were limits, that crossing the limits would have consequences, and we understood the limits.

I was slapped 2 times by a teacher in my school years, but I didn't complain, I knew I had cross the limits, and I knew that if the father was to learn about it (and both times the 2 teachers themselves explained it to my father), well the father would explain me that the teacher did right because if he had been there he (the father) would have slap me himself !

And if I was a father myself, I'd gladly go explain my child's teachers behind what limits they have my benediction to slap them.

All these moderns pedaguogic theories have lost connection with reality I'm afraid.

@Mr Chris

Would I mind if someone else hits my kids? Possibly not - so long as they don't mind a handful of broken fingers.

Yes mate, there is a difference. What I do within my family - so long as it does no lasting physical, financial or psychological damage to my family - is nobody else's business. Therein lies the problem.

There are children who have been punished by their parents to the point - and beyond - of abuse. There are children who have died as a result of abuse. Often this abuse was intentional and often it was delivered by a person with psychological problems. However, in this world of easy answers, feeble minds and professional hand-wringers, said professional hand-wringers - seeking an easy answer - came up with "Oh, we need to interfere in everyone's family life and make spanking your child verboten." Then the feeble minds, seeing the easy answer, jumped on the bandwagon. So now parents may not discipline their children as they see fit but must bow down before the idol of politically-correct thinking.

Postscript: My father tells me that my mother overruled his plan for my upbringing. His plan was this: Seal him in a barrel and feed him through the bunghole until he's eighteen. Then decide whether to break the barrel or seal up the bunghole.

To Summarise All The Above

Just to get one thing out of the way. Looks like the NSPCC spokesperson didn't read anything of what I read. This isn't about smacking a child/minor . . . STAT!!

So back on track . . .

1. What's to stop anyone asking for information about whoever they want to, without qualification/consent from the individual being inquired about, actually is in regular/brief contact with their child? Here are the scenarios:

A. 'My child is regularly/once in a Blue Moon, looked after by XYZ . . . Could you tell me if S/He is a paedo?

"No worries M'aam, will have that info for you in a jiffy. Just sign this form saying you won't pass on the results of our search of 'The Register' to anyone, while I search XYZ's record."

B. 'My child is regularly/once in a Blue Moon, looked after by XYZ . . . Could you tell me if S/He is a paedo?

"No worries M'aam, will have that info for you as soon as I've asked XYZ if S/He does/has ever had contact with your child. BTW, just sign this form giving us consent to contact XYZ, sorry but we need it before we can make an inquiry on 'The Register'.

Come on . . . Neither scenario fits the bill and that being the case then how can it be fit for any purpose . . . except one?

Scenario C (a hybrid of A & B and then some!!)

"I walked past/saw someone from my bedroom window/talked to in the street while I was walking my dog, a (suspicious) person I would like to know more about and the reason is . . . I've got kids. Well not me but my sister/brother/someone I know (vaguely) has 1 or 2 . . . I think."

Can this work?! Can any other proposal that has been brought forth actually work??!!

I guess all that I've wrote won't sit well with the: 'Nothing to hide, Nothing to fear' . . . Brigade!!

Have I got something to hide from or fear of? No, nothing at all, the only thing in my life to fear . . . . is fear itself!!

Will probably be flamed somewhere along the line for my post but . . .

Hey, this is my life and I would be an irresponsible person if I delegated my life and responsibilities to you and yours instead of taking the responsibility for myself!!

@annonymous coward

Trust me when I tell you the registry isn't a deterrent. In the U.S., studies show that 95% of newly reported sex crimes are perpetrated by people who are NOT ON the registry, and have no criminal history.

Just as the residency restrictions don't do a thing to protect children, the registry is useless as well.

Studies clearly show that if a person is Hell bent on offending, they WILL offend no matter where they live or if their name is on a list in some database somewhere.

People in America actually seem to believe that offenders (restriction is 1000 ft. from a school) who live 1002 ft. away, are too lazy to walk the extra 2 ft. for a victim.

You have the lists, yes, the registeries, yes...but until now they have not been made public. THAT's what you need to stop.