Bag's Rants

The pendulum of government.

It's one of these double edged swords that created problems for ordinary people and most of the time it makes things worse overall.

When the Soham killer was unmasked and it became clear that there was a risk that people such as Ian Huntley were still in the system calls were made, by the government to clamp down. Ian Huntley has been previously identified as a risk yet had been allowed to work with children. The big pendulum of government swung into action and it was decreed that everyone working with children would go through a Criminal Record Check. At that point a lot of people who were providing free help in the schools were now required to go through the CRC. A lot refused, some did and were refused and a lot went ahead and were passed. Now I believe there are a lot less helpers in schools now than there were and that can only impact on the children.

Almost as an aside it also appears that some people have been falsely accused of having criminal records and that has led to lost jobs. Read more here. You could argue that this is a small price for a society to pay to protect it's children but how many criminals have been falsely identified as cleared. Both are only to be expected in any system that is prone to errors.

It only takes one upsetting case to create these laws with no guarantee that we will be any better off. The only thing we can guarantee is that it will cost us all money, it will create more jobs in government and it will make mistakes that will impact real people. It's only results will be a number of how many passed or failed, which will not relate to the intention at all and how long it has run without a similar case. Then in the future after another case, such is human nature, we will hear of it's failings and how we need to change things and spend more as it must never happen again.

Such is the price of getting government involved in anything.

posted by Bag @ 7:40 pm