Fear the Tabloids

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07:12 am June 20th, 2006

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			Fear the Tabloids - Corrosive Shame — LiveJournal Therapy for Life

kneeshooter


	Fear the Tabloids
	http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5097102.stm Top Police Officer makes sense, then the Home Office jump in and deny that politicians are vote-chasers. Or something like that anyway. Tags: current affairs

8 lies or Lie to me


	Comments

	From: mr_h_r_hughes	Date: June 20th, 2006 06:40 am (UTC)		(Link)

He's right. Frankly I've been very worried since John Reid took over, I think he's far scarier in many ways than Blunkett.

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	From: wulfboy	Date: June 20th, 2006 08:29 am (UTC)		(Link)

I'm not especially impressed. I don't think there's any question that this is media-driven votes-whoring. I recall that we're living in a country where a doctor specialising in paediatrics was hounded from home by the mob because they thought that "paediatrician" qas something to do with wrong-touching.

I could rant more about their willingness to make information easily available to "the public" as long as it doesn't have anything to do with their own pecadillos. I might even wonder what exactly the purpose of the information is - is it so that you can move house if you're unhappy about there being a child sex offender living nearby? Given that a large percentage of child sex-offences are apparently committed by family members or people known to the family, is the point of the register to let people know who they should and should not make eye-contact with in the supermarket? Why is it restricted to child sex-offenders? Wouldn't women like to know if it's safe for them to walk the streets in a three mile area of their home?

For that matter are we giving up all pretence that one of the points of criminal justice is to rehabilitate offenders? Because to me this register says clearly "they're probably going to do it again and theres not much we can do about it. Lock up your children! Or better yet, murder them because we know how to deal with murderers."

I'd be interested to see what the response would be to a system that lets anyone check up on every single conviction or court appearance someone has made regardless of whether it has to do with childsex or not. There's a database I could happily spend hours surfing.

Ahem. I'll shush now.

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	From: mr_h_r_hughes	Date: June 20th, 2006 08:38 am (UTC)		(Link)

"Given that a large percentage of child sex-offences are apparently committed by family members or people known to the family"

I don't want to get into typing huge post dealing with everything that's wrong with this idiotic 'Sarah's Law' idea but I just thought I'd say that this bit of what you said is dead right. Child protection workers have been making that point a lot. the *vast* majority of child abuse is committed within a child's circle of family and friend, attacks by strangers are a tiny, tiny percentage. All this hoo-haa is ignoring the real problem, drawing attention, and funds away from it in order to appease newspapers and hysterical parents. People who really think children should be able to live free from the fear of abuse should think about that rather than screaming at bastions of toy-town democray such as radio phone-ins, newspaper letter pages and ridiculous daytime TV discussion shows.

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	From: wulfboy	Date: June 20th, 2006 10:22 am (UTC)		(Link)

All this hoo-haa is ignoring the real problem, drawing attention, and funds away from it in order to appease newspapers and hysterical parents.

I was watching the news on the tellybox last night and thinking just this.

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	From: mr_h_r_hughes	Date: June 20th, 2006 09:54 am (UTC)		(Link)

Further coverage:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5094186.stm

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	From: averylaterabbit	Date: June 20th, 2006 12:02 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I was saying to Ian the other day that Paedophilia is the 21st century Witch hunt.

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From: curlwomble	Date: June 20th, 2006 12:34 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Except that there *are* peadophiles who are a danger to kids, whereas there were no witches that communed with the Devil. This nugget of reality in the hysteria merelty serves to focus and amplify, of course.

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	From: averylaterabbit	Date: June 20th, 2006 02:39 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I saw on the news 2 years ago a doctor had her car kicked and battered to pieces because it had "Pediatrician" written on the side.

At the slightest hint of a suggestion, our hackles rise, we point fingers, and reach for our pitchforks.

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	8 lies or Lie to me