Round up the youthful suspects! Govt to target crime at birth
[British] Children’s Minister Hilary Armstrong was due today to outline what could become one of Project Blair’s most ambitious, misguided and hubristic projects yet. The Government will attempt to identify children at risk of failure, violent behaviour or criminality at birth, and take the necessary corrective actions to steer them onto a law-abiding and successful path.
Ironically, Armstrong is floating these proposals just as this same predictive approach to future behaviour patterns is becoming discredited. A couple of national newspapers, the Independent and The Observer, appear to have seen outlines of the plans. According to the Independent, midwives, doctors and nurses are to be “asked to identify ‘chaotic’ families whose babies are in danger of growing up to be delinquents, drug addicts and violent criminals.” The plan will be backed up by “research” which “shows that children from the most dysfunctional families are 100 times more likely to abuse alcohol commit crimes or take drugs”
The problem with prediction is that although it is possible to identify ‘tell-tale’ signs in actual offenders, the presence of these does not necessarily identify future offenders. Start with the real villains and work backwards, and the signs were all obviously there, but studies that start with the signs and work forwards don’t end up separating the serial criminals from the law abiding. So yes, it may still seem ‘obvious’ that you can figure out what made people bad and go back to childhood and fix it, but right now you haven’t been able to prove it. So stop experimenting on whole generations until you have proved it, OK?
Personally I’m waiting for victimless pre-crime.
“Hilary Armstrong will also announce proposals to target babies and toddlers under two in the war on antisocial behaviour, identifying children in problem families who could grow up to get into trouble.”
THE OBSERVER
This is a very different story than the one “The Register” are “reporting”. I’m not saying they are lying, but they are certainly twisting the truth a great deal.
The government, of course, would never spin their position! This is purely for your own good! I welcome our new pre-crime overlords!
They are doing this the wrong way. How about teaching parents from such (all?) familys guidelines how to bring up children and how to understand and combat bad behaviour properly? Understanding the psychology of children should be mandatory reading, not taking their belt/shoe/palm to them after shouting at them fails to work.
“I’m not saying they are lying, but they are certainly twisting the truth a great deal.”
The Observer gets the Government advance spin pack, which appears to mention ‘research’, but not to provide it, as such. The Observer writes the story from there. The Reg analyses a specific aspect of the story in the context of broader Government policy and thinking, and cites several experts in the field in support of its analysis. And, um, The Register is twisting the truth? Well OK, if you like…
So much for nature vs nurture. I wonder which is worse, being raised by a dysfunctional family or being raised by the government.
One more step towards thr complete “Nanny State!”. If this continues much further there will be nobody capable of making descisions in a couple of generations as everybody will expect the state to do everythingf or them and absolve them of responsibilty for anytthing.
Now on the day I was born
The nurses all gathered round
And gazed in wide wonder
At the joy they had found
The head nurse spoke up
Said leave this one alone
She could tell right away
I was bad to the bone
-George Thorogood
Is the next “great debate” condition vs. genetics?
For example, are we saying that a thief is a thief, regardless of wealth? That seems to fly in the face of reality, where many poor steal because they know of no other way to aquire the things they need (mainly, food).
We need that here to solve the outsourcing problem. We should ship them off at birth to a penal colony.. er reform school where they can spend their useless lives working for slave wages making clothes, doing Dell’s online tech support or manufacturing Apple computers..
So black and poor kids should be raised by the government. And all according to certain ideas about how parenting should occur. No spanking, etc.
Pre-crime is back! in pog from!
#8: Many of the wealthy obtained and maintain their wealth through various genteel forms of thievery.
But the problem with the British is that they had a bad experience with a group of colonists and ever since then they’ve been trying to figure that whole deal out. This is just more of that.
Other than something like Head Start, and the breakfast program at schools (yes, yes…in spite of the misuses it’s mostly done good), What kind of of help and direction do you think they would try?? I thought the world had signed off on the squinty eyes, uneven skull, extra y chromosome type of crap as explanation for antisocial behavior. Do you think the British are trying to figure
out a way to pick up the “white mans burden” again? Has Hitler been reincarnated?
Maybe OmarTheAlien Is right, and we all need to start singing.
In 1814 I took a little trip, along with colonel Jackson down the mighty
Missisip……..
Everyone seems to want a government that can do this sort of thing, otherwise they wouldn’t be voting for more of it. Quit your complaining and line up for testing!
Need extra time for testing………