Liberal Vision

Why feeling safer is dangerous

Many of us  will have woken up this morning to find that parents who regularly drive children for sports or social clubs , and those that host foreign students, will have to undergo criminal record checks or face fines of up to £5,000 if they dont. The rules are intended to stop paedophiles from coming into contact with children.

Informal arrangements between parents will not be covered, but “anyone taking part in activities involving “frequent” or “intensive” contact with children or vulnerable adults three times in a month, every month, or once overnight, must register”. And here’s the first problem that strikes me. Busy parents with kids, work and other commitments may easily find themselves falling foul of this unintentionally. My sister-in-law is not a “regular” volunteer but I don’t think she even knows  how many times a month she is asked by after-school club organizers to “stand in” and take another child home from the same village (once twice, maybe three times?). Her sensible reaction from here-on-in must be surely to say “no”, unless she carries a checklist with her at all times, or risk picking up a £5000 fine – not that the club will dare ask.

 Here’s my second concern. The government estimates these new rules will put over 11million adults (that’s about in 1 in 4) on this register. I don’t believe for one second that the government has a system in place that can cope with such volumes – nor do I believe it will be accurate. Not only will the “occasional” parent find themselves in a position where they have to decline to stand in , but the delays involved will result in thousands of volunteers not being able to do this work as they await their checks to be completed.

 That is without considering those parents who will fail  because of some minor misdemeanor in their past lives (or error on the system!) or are (reasonably in my opinion) unwilling to be subjected to the entire process.

 The inevitable result will be swathes of volunteers unable or unwilling to assist in out-of-school activities. So whilst we seek to protect our children from the slight danger of encountering a paedophile, the actual result will be that many kids will be denied the opportunity to participate in sports and other important social activities. Result: fat, bored kids who will – apparently justifiably- be terrified of every adult they encounter.

 Now, I know that there will be those that say we should go to every length to protect our children. That people should be willing, eager even, to subject themselves to these checks if it protects “just one child”.

 But I don’t think that’s right. We have become such risk-averse society that we are willing to kill innocents in Afghanistan – and see our own soldiers killed – to reduce “the threat” of terrorism in the UK. We are willing to strip millions of honest UK citizens of their privacy, with the introduction of id card’s,  in order to guard against some undefined threat. We are probably about to stop clubs , arts groups and sporting outlets access to £millions from alcohol sponsorship because of  the minority who cause trouble on our streets on a Saturday night. We are now going to deprive thousands of children from a swathe of beneficial activities because of the small threat of roaming paedophiles.

 We have become a fearful, impotent nation that is willing to allow regulation after regulation to rule our lives because we are frightened of bearded foreigners, men in macks and bored teenagers collecting on the streets at the weekend. Is that really the society we want? It’s not the one I want. Bit by bit we are surrendering concepts such as parental responsibility, common sense  and neighbourliness to anonymous bureaucrats in Whitehall who make the majority of us feel safe. And thats without considering the impact on those we seek to vilify.In reality these checks – as with almost all the other measures introduced from the corridors of power – will not stop harm – they will make us all take less care of ourselves and our children and more suspicious of everyone else. And that ‘s just not sad, its downright dangerous.