Meghan's Law: Good Idea? I Doubt It!

Some more comments in Martin Narey's rant to the Times but covering a different aspect of John Reid's pissing the Home Office up the wall.

“Mr Narey said that he was particularly concerned about disclosures last month that Mr Reid was prepared to consider importing a version of “Megan’s law”, the US legislation that provides parents with information about paedophiles who have been released from prison into accommodation in their area.
Mr Reid’s decision followed a campaign by the News of the World for the introduction of “Sarah’s law”, named after eight-year-old Sarah Payne, who was murdered in 2000.
Child protection groups have cautioned that this could provoke vigilante attacks on the homes of released sex offenders, resulting in more children being abused by offenders who had been driven underground.”

It’s not often I agree with the liberal leftie Guardian types of the world but here I have to…. Let’s imagine you’re a parent and you are given the information that a known nonce is living near your school. You have three basic choices:

- You tolerate this – I doubt any parent is going to stand for this. All parents fear for their children’s safety and rightly so. If you found out that the local kiddie fiddler was living by your house with binoculars at the ready you would never rest, something would need to be done.

- You change where you live – This is only going to benefit a small minority, i.e. the people who can afford to buy a house at the drop of a hat. Add to that the costs and hassles of not only changing house at short notice but changing school as well. If you are in council housing for example the council aren’t going to move you because you’re not a priority case. You’re stuck with it unless you buy.

- The Nonce moves away – well the government aren’t going to rehouse this person since he/she is living in a government approved location anyway so they’re staying. Unless that it you are prepared to take the law into your own hands. Cue a march down the street with flaming torches and pitchforks aloft returning gleefully with old Johnny Nonce’s head on a pole.

Sorry, but we are better off not knowing. What should be done is that these people shouldn’t be near children anyway if you’re of the opinion that they are criminals then they should be locked up, deported or whatever we can do. If you’re of the opinion that they are just the poor mentally ill then they are clearly the dangerous mentally ill and they should be locked in treatment. The old loony bins have been painted as inhumane but they can offer secure treatment which these people should have. This sort of treatment is just not provided by Care in the Community.

Anyways… I digress

Mr Narey criticised the Prime Minister for his negative attitude towards children, in particular the Government’s use of words such as “yob” to describe them.
“I want to speak out about the demonisation of children, not just by the tabloid press, but by Government, including the Prime Minister, even though I am a huge fan of his.
“They are routinely using the words ‘yob’ and ‘feral’ to describe young people. Can you imagine applying that to any other minority? It’s unimaginable.

Nicely timed matey… just as our Mr. Cameron is criticising the government’s stance on yob culture.

“We have convinced ourselves that we are the first generation to be troubled by children, but we are not. The problem is that we have become more intolerant of a lack of conformity.

Actually the issue is that the government has become more tolerant rather than intolerant. I personally don’t have a problem with groups of teenagers. I have a problem with intimidating, threatening, violent and anti-social mobs regardless of age.

An ASBO is not a deterrent, it’s about time an unpleasant punishment for the criminals amongst the young was brought in.

“What I really hate are those signs you see in shops near schools ‘only two children at a time’. It is like saying that every child is a potential thief.
“We need to open up a debate on childhood. If you had politicians speaking more positively about young people, then they might get a better press,” he said

Absolutely but it’s a lot easier to intervene and just ban children, ban hoodies, ban ringtones or whatever Labour can think of other than actually bring in a workable system of punishment and deterrent.

Not all children are yobs and thugs but the government doesn’t do anything about the yobs and thugs amongst them, nor do they let us do anything about it ourselves. It’s one or the other guys. Help us out.