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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: MAPPA
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
Early next year a good friend, an experienced primary teacher, will automatically be suspended from the job she loves. This is because she is married to a sex offender who will be released from jail. Our dear government has decided to extend MAPPA (the Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements), which previously laid down very sensible guidelines like forbidding day nurseries to exist in the homes of sex offenders, to ALL PRIMARY SCHOOL STAFF.
Headteachers are already informed of any members of staff who are living in the same house as a sex offender, and they already have the power to bar the offender from the school. Teachers don't take their pupils home with them along with the homework, so the chances of a teacher's sex offender spouse having access to the kids are zero. You would think that's all that's needed. But no: now just being married to the wrong person gets you barred regardless. And that's not even touching on the rights and wrongs of the initial case: how serious the offence, how likely it is to re-occur etc. (And you'll just have to take my work that in this case the likelihood of re-occurrence is so small you couldn't pick it up with the Hubble.) This isn't even playing safe. This is just stupid.
Headteachers are told they can exercise their judgement in individual cases, which is one gleam of light at the end of the tunnel. But it will be a brave head who goes against the wishes of a baying mob of parents. Meanwhile, Ofsted are inundated with appeals, tying up the time they could spend on actually useful work; hundreds of children will be have their education disrupted; and because the teachers are only suspended, not fired, they continue to get paid, so large chunks of the education budget payroll are just being poured down a black hole.
Morons.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
Early next year a good friend, an experienced primary teacher, will automatically be suspended from the job she loves. This is because she is married to a sex offender who will be released from jail. Our dear government has decided to extend MAPPA (the Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements), which previously laid down very sensible guidelines like forbidding day nurseries to exist in the homes of sex offenders, to ALL PRIMARY SCHOOL STAFF.
Yes.
I heard about this yesterday.
I wonder about those people living with sex offenders who don't know about it. A double shock.
I suppose she has a choice to make - marriage or job.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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anne
Shipmate
# 73
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Posted
I imagine that the thinking is not that a school teacher's spouse will have convenient access to children but rather that children might consider a school teacher's spouse a 'safe' person. They are not talking to a stranger when they meet in the street, they are talking to Mrs Smiths husband. Mrs Smith is lovely and why wouldn't her husband be?
There is at least one very well known example in the UK of a tragic and terrible crime perpetrated by the partner of someone well known to the victims through her work in their school. Your friends may be paying the price of this crime.
Are there implications of this change in policy for churches as well as schools?
anne
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‘I would have given the Church my head, my hand, my heart. She would not have them. She did not know what to do with them. She told me to go back and do crochet' Florence Nightingale
Posts: 338 | From: Devon | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
There are countries/cultures that punish the entire family of a criminal.
Knew North Korea was one. Didn't know the UK was.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anne:
There is at least one very well known example in the UK of a tragic and terrible crime perpetrated by the partner of someone well known to the victims through her work in their school. Your friends may be paying the price of this crime.
That was Ian Huntley, wasn't it?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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anne
Shipmate
# 73
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
That was Ian Huntley, wasn't it?
That's the one I was thinking of - but it may not be the only similar case of course.
This safeguarding issue, not of access but of who children might consider 'safe' was brought home to me a few years ago.
I walked past a group of about six primary aged children playing at the front door of a house. They had set up a 'nail bar' with varnishes and a price list and so on. I said 'Hi' and they all started to chat. Did I want a manicure? Did I want a head massage? Did I want to come in to the house and choose a different nail polish?
Because although they went to different schools, every one of them knew me because I took school assemblies. I was in school, with permission, talking to them all, they knew my name, their teachers and headteachers knew me - so therefore I was 'safe'.
I said no thank you to the head rub and visit into the house
I sat on the step while they painted my nails and I thought about their safety and mine.
anne
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‘I would have given the Church my head, my hand, my heart. She would not have them. She did not know what to do with them. She told me to go back and do crochet' Florence Nightingale
Posts: 338 | From: Devon | Registered: May 2001
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
I hadn't thought of Ian Huntley and that's a good point. But before my own hell call collapses under the weight of a shipmate's reasonableness, I will still say this is still taking a very broad brush to tackle a specific problem that can be dealt with by other means, and innocents will be penalised for it.
Huntley should have been caught much earlier; so, spend energy on improving the system to catch the Huntleys sooner. Meanwhile, convicted paedophiles married to teachers can simply have it written into their parole (and possibly already do) that they stay away from their spouse's kids; therefore, the kids will never know they exist; therefore, the issue of falsely identifying them as "safe" won't arise because the contact will never happen in the first place.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
I think it's generally sensible not to legislate based on one event. I'm not convinced that the Soham murders are an exception to this principle.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
Meanwhile, convicted paedophiles married to teachers can simply have it written into their parole (and possibly already do) that they stay away from their spouse's kids; therefore, the kids will never know they exist; therefore, the issue of falsely identifying them as "safe" won't arise because the contact will never happen in the first place.
Never? Absolutes are rarely accurate.
It is nearly impossible to frame a law which can be justly applied in every circumstance, but this one appears* to try. It allows for a headmaster to make an exception.
Will heads fail to allow an exception in cases they should allow one? Likely yes. Will heads grant an exception where they shouldn't? A real possibility as well.
I would rather see a little excess caution in protecting those who are most vulnerable.
*From LJ's description, I've not read it.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Gwai,
I think it depends on the location as much as country. You live in a large city, therefore chance encounters may be more rare.
In small villages, or tight communities, encounters will be greater in frequency.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
I'm with Gwai here; at primary school, I did know one teacher's husband by sight but I knew him as a friend's daddy rather than the teacher's husband. The other husbands, I would not have recognised if I had seen them. Otherwise, I met the husband of my form teacher (in her first job out of training college) when she brought him to the school disco.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Gwai,
I think it depends on the location as much as country. You live in a large city, therefore chance encounters may be more rare.
In small villages, or tight communities, encounters will be greater in frequency.
In many villages and small towns a lot of teachers take care to live elsewhere, mostly to ensure their children don't attend schools at which they teach. I've attended a couple of schools where that wasn't the case (run for children of HM forces overseas) and it could be very awkward for the teachers' children.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Maybe the logic is that someone who teaches children who *chooses* to remain in an intimate relationship with a convicted paedophile does not fully appreciate the harm done by such offences - and therefore may not be effective at safeguarding the children in their care.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I think so Doublethink., but also consider that the number of sexual offenders who stay married post-conviction is small. I suspect that the general reasonableness of the regulation, while debatable, will probably hold.
Post release conditions can require no computer in the home, restricted movement in the community, and other things. Perhaps these are also considerations. Sexual offending at all times is seen as heinous and I doubt there's much sympathy generally in the community about difficulties they may face.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Maybe the logic is that someone who teaches children who *chooses* to remain in an intimate relationship with a convicted paedophile does not fully appreciate the harm done by such offences - and therefore may not be effective at safeguarding the children in their care.
Because we must totally ostracise all sex offenders, thereby providing them with no incentive whatsoever to live as normal members of society.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
It's also worth pointing out that being on the sex offenders register doesn't mean one is guilty of paedophilia. There are any number of offences, some relatively minor, that can result in such lifelong consequences.
Should a teacher be suspended because her husband once pinched a random girl's bum in a club when he was 21 and she pressed sexual assault charges?
[ 21. January 2015, 20:07: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
This one is more severe I think, given imprisonment.
The same question about serious consequences have been asked about the child pornography offences and some prostitution-related offences. It seems that there is no living down the consequences to some conduct. Which I do understand on a "who cares" level when there is some reasonableness to the assessment of risk, particularly re children.
Indeed, pinching a bum is far different than a penetrative sexual offence, but a same-age victim to offender scenario does not provide any comfort about level of risk to children. But I am not aware of any cases locally or more generally in Canada that have resulted in sexual assault charges for pinching a bum. Perhaps it happens some places. I am aware of people who were caught smoking marijuana as teens or young adults and are turned back at Canada-USA border control because a drug offence 35 years ago comes up on the entry scan. This has wrecked paid-for Disneyland holiday plans etc though I expect the other family members could have continued the trip.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
[crossposted with No Prophet]
Goes back to the headteacher's exemption.
I work with sex offenders, amongst others, and don't believe in demonisation etc. I also work with vulnerable people, and spend more time than I'd want in child protection conferences and adult safeguarding meetings.
There are, sadly, many people who can not put the needs of a child ahead of their need for a partner. Denial can be a way of resolving that dilemma.
It is difficult to get jailed for a sexual offence or on onto the sex offenders register - (contrary to press reports) - in the vast majority of cases someone jailed for a sexual offence will have done something seriously harmful.
[ 21. January 2015, 20:25: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
There are, sadly, many people who can not put the needs of a child ahead of their need for a partner. Denial can be a way of resolving that dilemma.
And apparently so can divorce?
We're not talking here about a lonely single parent who takes on a bad choice of partner for a step-dad or step-mum. We're talking about someone who's married. Not someone who needs a partner, but someone who HAS a partner and who made promises to stay with them for life.
Having a law that makes a person choose between their spouse and their career is fundamentally bad policy.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
On what do you base that assertion ?
It could be worse, most often it is people being asked to chose between their partner and their child - effectively under civil law.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Having a law that makes a person choose between their spouse and their career is fundamentally bad policy.
Associating with known criminals would cost Mrs Tor her job, even if (or especially if) that known criminal was me. Of course, we knew that was the case when she got the post, rather than the requirements retrospectively applied.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Having a law that makes a person choose between their spouse and their career is fundamentally bad policy.
It does seem like social engineering of people's choices, which we'd presume should be free. This choice is commonly forced in the scenario where a married couple has minor children and they would be apprehended by Child Protection if the offender remains in the home. The logicalness of this situation seems obvious. Choose the children or the spouse.
It is the extension of this due to more general risk that is the issue. Presumably there's a background to the law and rules? Did they institute it because of particular experience? because an expert panel said so? why?
I do think though, that it is difficult for most people to imagine anyone wanting to live with a sex offender, with the assumption that if you do wish to, there must be something disordered. I wonder what the numbers are? I also wonder if a teacher might decide to teach adults versus children if they really want to maintain the relationship.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Mind you, looks like it is partly a cock up. (That has fuck all to do with MAPPA.)
[ 21. January 2015, 20:58: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I do think though, that it is difficult for most people to imagine anyone wanting to live with a sex offender, with the assumption that if you do wish to, there must be something disordered.
That would be because most people have been trained to automatically treat sex offenders as demons, not as actual people.
It's hard to think of any other group of offenders that are treated with such hysteria. No-one equates the kid who stole some stuff from the corner shop with an armed bank robber. People at least allow for the possibility of other offenders mending their ways.
But sex offenses are permanent. There is no rehabilitation. And I can't help wonder if that isn't in some cases a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby society has completely removed any incentive for rehabilitation and staying out of trouble. If you're going to be punished for the rest of your life regardless of whether you offend again or not, why not try doing it again? If you did something a little bit bad the first time, why not do something worse the second time?
We've made sex offences worse than murder. And then we wonder why there are so many cases where the victim of a sexual assault has then been murdered in an effort to cover up the original crime. In for a penny, in for a pound.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Mind you, looks like it is partly a cock up. (That has fuck all to do with MAPPA.)
If it's because no-one can understand MAPPA, then it's to do with MAPPA.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
It isn't, te law they are referencing is not a mappa process. MAPPA is a risk management process activated between agencies around specific individuals, not all of whom have necessarily been jailed, to plan how to manage them safely in the community.
[ 21. January 2015, 21:46: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I do think though, that it is difficult for most people to imagine anyone wanting to live with a sex offender, with the assumption that if you do wish to, there must be something disordered.
That would be because most people have been trained to automatically treat sex offenders as demons, not as actual people.
It's hard to think of any other group of offenders that are treated with such hysteria. No-one equates the kid who stole some stuff from the corner shop with an armed bank robber. People at least allow for the possibility of other offenders mending their ways.
But sex offenses are permanent. There is no rehabilitation. And I can't help wonder if that isn't in some cases a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby society has completely removed any incentive for rehabilitation and staying out of trouble. If you're going to be punished for the rest of your life regardless of whether you offend again or not, why not try doing it again? If you did something a little bit bad the first time, why not do something worse the second time?
We've made sex offences worse than murder. And then we wonder why there are so many cases where the victim of a sexual assault has then been murdered in an effort to cover up the original crime. In for a penny, in for a pound.
The problem with and for sex offenders is that it is entirely different from a kid stealing something from a store and an armed robbery. Sexual offences are about a personal, private aspect, central to identity, partly physical, intensely emotional. Utterly unlike any form of property crime. Physical assaults, where someone is hurt, bones broken etc comes closer, but still doesn't compare. Sexual assaults become something the person assaulted is reminded of when they consider love with another human being, the kind of love that would include physical intimacy. Thus love becomes tainted. Yes, there is healing, but never, quite, restoration.
Not all sexual offences are the same. I've reviewed the data many times. Child-oriented offenders who have used social skills and persuasive means to get the child to do something sexual are the most treatable and reformable, offenders against girls more so than those exclusively assaulting against boys. Rapists who violently attack strangers are the most dangerous and should probably be treated as unreformable; we just can't risk it. I'd go for lifetime sentences of monitoring when not in prison for this group.
The dynamics of sex offending usually contain plenty of self-centredness, lack of empathy, and "poor me" types of distorted thoughts that "gee I am being treated like crap because I'm a pariah due to my sex offending" is already well in place and doesn't require any additional reference to being labelled and continually punished.
Thankfully, there are not many cases of rape-murder. We have very few of these per year in Canada, and some years without, among the 600 or so murders in this nation of 34 million per year. Most sex offenders keep doing what they do, once they have acquired an adult pattern of behaviour started in their mid-teens to young adult years.
I think the focus on offenders is entirely too much in most cases. The focus needs to be on whom they've harmed. Empathy is misplaced too often.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
When you're talking about prospects for rehabilitation, though, the focus is inherently on the offender.
That doesn't preclude caring for the victims. It's not an either/or proposition.
I'm just not convincted that a lot of our responses are based on a rational assessment of the risk of recidivism (such as your own discussion).
Also if this is supposed to be based on the Ian Huntley case, as suggested, it would have been completely useless against Huntley because he was never previously convicted of anything.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Beethoven
Ship's deaf genius
# 114
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Not all sexual offences are the same. I've reviewed the data many times. Child-oriented offenders who have used social skills and persuasive means to get the child to do something sexual are the most treatable and reformable, offenders against girls more so than those exclusively assaulting against boys. Rapists who violently attack strangers are the most dangerous and should probably be treated as unreformable; we just can't risk it. I'd go for lifetime sentences of monitoring when not in prison for this group.
Seems to me that that's just about the opposite of the way the media portrays things, too. I've somehow gained the idea that sexual abuse against children is just about impossible to reform, whereas 'random' rape is very rare and probably unlikely to be repeated.
But yeah, I'm another who only ever met teachers' spouses when they themselves were also on the staff at the school I went to. Other than that, nope. Not at all. Ever. And as far as I'm aware, neither of the Opuses have ever met (or even seen at a distance) their teachers' partners. With appropriate child protection policies, DBS checking in place for both paid and voluntary roles in schools (and indeed other organisations working with children or vulnerable adults), it seems to me that this is taking a horribly broad brush approach completely unnecessarily. I honestly can't see how it protects anyone who couldn't otherwise be protected by implementation of sensible policies which wouldn't also harm innocent bystanders.
[ 22. January 2015, 10:10: Message edited by: Beethoven ]
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Who wants to be a rock anyway?
toujours gai!
Posts: 1309 | From: Here (and occasionally there) | Registered: May 2001
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
I don't think the issue is about the teachers inviting kids over for tea and cake - nobody does that. If there is a safeguarding issue, I think it's more likely to be in the form of information about the kids, perhaps taken out of a briefcase or an unprotected PC, or just conversation over a breakfast table. A determined individual living in the same house as a teacher could probably get enough information about kids to start grooming them. Particularly if his partner trusts or fears him and feels pressure to answer questions. He might not be recognisable as "Mrs Smith's husband" but as a charismatic adult who knows the kids' names, where they live, the names of their siblings and pets etc. With kids, that's probably enough to get them offguard. They've been told not to go with strangers, but this guy who knows a bunch of stuff about them clearly isn't a stranger - he must have been one of the many trustworthy adults they've met and can't quite place.
I think that's the most plausible risk. Now, what the likelihood of this actually happening is, I don't know. I do know that it'd only take one high profile case of this happening and the press will crawl all over it and the people who came up with the system will have the mob at the door, their names in the mud and their careers ruined. Which is probably why they're trying to think of every hypothetical situation and prevent them all, even if it takes a blunt instrument to do so.
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
In the UK the issue of safeguarding, and of checking the records of people with access to children, only came about because of the murder of two young girls in Soham, Cambridgeshire.
They came into contact with their killer because they visited the house of a classroom assistant they knew at school.
The old CRB checking system wouldn't have unearthed the killer (Ian Huntley) because he was not married to the TA.
The new system MAPPA wouldn't have revealed him either because, despite several complaints about his behaviour, he hadn't been charged with any offence. All the checking in the world will only reveal people who are already known to the police.
Is the new system going to be 'fair'? Probably not but I think the attitude now is 'better safe than sorry' - and I doubt many parents would disagree with that.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
This is not accurate, police checks had existed for decades prior to the Soham murders. The problem was they were not co-ordinated nationally and they were destoryed once done. CRB checks came in after Soham, as basic and enhanced. Enhanced checks include police intelligence not just convictions - so allegationns would appear. Then CRB changed to DBS.
[ 22. January 2015, 18:22: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
I think that's the most plausible risk. Now, what the likelihood of this actually happening is, I don't know. I do know that it'd only take one high profile case of this happening and the press will crawl all over it and the people who came up with the system will have the mob at the door, their names in the mud and their careers ruined. Which is probably why they're trying to think of every hypothetical situation and prevent them all, even if it takes a blunt instrument to do so.
I think this hits the nail on the head.
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Is the new system going to be 'fair'? Probably not but I think the attitude now is 'better safe than sorry' - and I doubt many parents would disagree with that.
And this. It's just a shame it panders to the mob rule mentality.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
This is not accurate, police checks had existed for decades prior to the Soham murders. The problem was they were not co-ordinated nationally and they were destoryed once done. CRB checks came in after Soham, as basic and enhanced. Enhanced checks include police intelligence not just convictions - so allegationns would appear. Then CRB changed to DBS.
IIRC, the papers were more concerned that the Huntley situation highlighted the limitations of the existing system of police checks. Huntley was working as a care-taker at a local school. Things had been reported, but as he’d never been charged, they didn’t come up when he was checked. The system was changed to try and ensure that this kind of situation would never happen again.
Given that Carr and Huntley lived in the same village as the school she worked at, some of the children would have known both of them. Given the size of the UK, good luck with legislating to prevent that!
And back to the matter in hand … Anyone convicted of a sexual offence that’s listed on Schedule 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 will end up on the Register. All the obvious ones are included – rape, sexual assault etc. But other, less serious offences are included in some circumstances. Not all offenders will be a risk to children.
The new guidelines also appear to include violent crimes, as per the article DT linked too. The article highlights people being suspended from their jobs because their other half was convicted of GBH 20 years ago, served their sentence and never offended since. Many of these won’t be a risk to children either.
It does look like the Government wants a quick fix to a loop hole and, rather than drafting proper guidelines, is using a sledge hammer to crack a nut.
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
quote:
Originally posted by welsh dragon:
Guardian article
Thank you. That's someone who gets it.
The mums at my daughter's school used to go out every so often. One of the mum's remarked, in all seriousness, that wouldn’t allow her child to do sleepovers. Not even with members of her own family, because “you couldn’t trust anyone”.
Stuff like this just reinforces the assumption that anyone and everyone is a potential risk to children. It's entirely counter-productive.
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Stuff like this just reinforces the assumption that anyone and everyone is a potential risk to children. It's entirely counter-productive.
You say that, but (if the statistics are anywhere near accurate) in any given class of 30, two or three children will be being abused, physically, emotionally or sexually. And that is possibly a significant underestimate.
And as both a parent and a teaching assistant, I've had to navigate through that.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
For 'police intelligence' read what? For police to have something officially on-file because either a crime has been committed or someone has been arrested and charged with something is one thing.
But in many instances so-called 'intelligence' has turned out to nothing more than gossip.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Yes, it is not a good idea in my opinion - however - under CRB - previous allegations re Huntely would almost certainly have showed up, because they would have showed up on the PNC search.
I am still confused as to how the current proposals being implemented (suddenly after coming into law in 2009, wierdly) have anything to do with MAPPA.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Zacchaeus
Shipmate
# 14454
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
quote:
Originally posted by welsh dragon:
Guardian article
Thank you. That's someone who gets it.
The mums at my daughter's school used to go out every so often. One of the mum's remarked, in all seriousness, that wouldn’t allow her child to do sleepovers. Not even with members of her own family, because “you couldn’t trust anyone”.
Stuff like this just reinforces the assumption that anyone and everyone is a potential risk to children. It's entirely counter-productive.
Tubbs
I won’t let my children go on sleepovers either.
We stop our children from playing out in the streets because of perceived risk from strangers but actually the greater risk is from people they know, Relatives, friends, siblings of friends, friends parents etc. People perceive keeping their child indoors as safer when actually that is where they are more at risk.
When weighing things up, I think ‘do I know these people well enough to trust them with open access to my house or bank accounts?’ Well if I don’t know if I can trust them with my house keys, bank card and PIN numbers, then why would I trust them with my kids?
Posts: 1905 | From: the back of beyond | Registered: Jan 2009
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Stuff like this just reinforces the assumption that anyone and everyone is a potential risk to children. It's entirely counter-productive.
You say that, but (if the statistics are anywhere near accurate) in any given class of 30, two or three children will be being abused, physically, emotionally or sexually. And that is possibly a significant underestimate.
And as both a parent and a teaching assistant, I've had to navigate through that.
I don't disagree, but I can't help wishing that there was some kind of middle ground between the complacency/ denial of previous decades and what we're seeing now. Neither strikes me as being helpful, but I don't have anything to suggest.
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
When weighing things up, I think ‘do I know these people well enough to trust them with open access to my house or bank accounts?’ Well if I don’t know if I can trust them with my house keys, bank card and PIN numbers, then why would I trust them with my kids?
No-one here locks their doors anyway, and kids regularly play outside alone. Sleep overs are extremely common. And I've seen one of my colleagues (we're teachers) hand a pupil her debit card and give them her PIN to go and get something from a shop while on a school trip. It's also standard practice to leave your keys in the unlocked car.
Different worlds, eh?
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
Trust isn't one thing. Would I have trusted my ex with my PIN? Of course not. He was crap with money. Would I trust him with my kids? Absolutely!
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
When weighing things up, I think ‘do I know these people well enough to trust them with open access to my house or bank accounts?’ Well if I don’t know if I can trust them with my house keys, bank card and PIN numbers, then why would I trust them with my kids?
No-one here locks their doors anyway, and kids regularly play outside alone. Sleep overs are extremely common. And I've seen one of my colleagues (we're teachers) hand a pupil her debit card and give them her PIN to go and get something from a shop while on a school trip. It's also standard practice to leave your keys in the unlocked car.
Different worlds, eh?
Thing is, we were talking about our most treasured childhood memories. Quite a few referenced sleep overs with grandparents or other relatives, then said that they'd never let their kids do that as it was too risky. That struck me as sad.
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
We've developed into a society that somehow believes it is possible to guard perfectly against EVERYTHING.
It isn't. Well, not without functioning in ways that would no longer be considered normal. Life is risk. And I say that as a rather risk averse person.
An oft cited example is that we could protect against absolutely all road deaths, by having cars move at a crawl not much faster than walking pace. We don't do this. Yes, we have a lot of safeguards in cars and road rules, but there comes a point where you just can't prevent everything unless you're basically prepared to prevent meaningful driving.
You have to wonder whether some parents are reaching the point with children that they're so intent on preventing disaster that they're actually going to prevent their children from growing up. No, you shouldn't just let them go any old place, but if there are no relatives or friends AT ALL that you trust with your children at all, that's a problem. That's preventing your kids from learning how to interact with other people or show any independence.
How far does it go? No after school activities? No music lessons, despite all the research showing the benefit of music in education, in case the teacher is a pervert?
[ 23. January 2015, 21:30: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I've given my PIN number to at least a dozen of people already. Friends, colleagues ... Someone goes to a shop: "Hey, since you're going, could you buy that-and-that for me? Here's my card and number."
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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