Minority Report
Council staff will be required to tip-off Police about 'potentially' violent offenders, according to the latest piece of madness from the Home Office. The leaked document states:"Public bodies will have access to valuable information about people at risk of becoming either perpetrators or victims of serious violence." It says when staff become "sufficiently concerned" about an individual, that person should be should "risk assessed" and, if necessary, referred for further attention. Mr King suggests two new agencies be created - one to collate reports on potential offenders, the other on potential victims. New laws would also be needed to place staff under a statutory obligation to report any concerns...
So if you lose your temper with Council staff; if they think you are drinking heavily; or if you have mental health problems, then you will end up on the agency lists. Denying you are a victim, will - of course in this new climate of 'preventative action' - demonstrate that you are actually a victim in denial.
Leaving aside the sheer lunacy of expecting, nay demanding, that Council staff diagnose mental illness, how long before the state is dragging you in for compulsory sanity tests, based on malicious gossip, misunderstanding, or a mix up over names.
Hopefully this proposal will never see the light of day, but it looks like another way of justifying ID cards "to protect the public" from those who fail a risk assessment.
3 comments:
This is just us catching up with the US, where such things are standard practise. There, you can buy a psychological report on anyone else (and, for that matter, a whole swathe of other information) online.
This again calls into question the "better safe than sorry" philosophy and the every greatening health and saftey risk measures. I think this proposal could be introduced to a reasonable level of decencey, where extreme behaviour can be reported. However it also has the potential to be abused for settling scores etc. A simple test period would highlight it's effectiveness or ineffectiveness.
marksy;- this is the sort of thing that the government will 'test' - but it will have made up its mind beforehand what the answer is it wants which will be "yes of course this is a good idea" - otherwise it would not be asking and trying - i am sorry if i sound cynical - but they've got form!
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