Jacqui Smith is launching a new scheme to tackle violent binge drinkers
Posted on 02/20/2008 11:56:29 AM PST by BGHater
Doctors, teachers and social workers will be told to act as informers to identify potential violent offenders for monitoring by the police and other agencies.
Ministers hope that by spotting binge-drinkers, drug addicts and young gang members early before they commit serious crimes they can be placed on a national database and steered away from offending behaviour.
The plans have been dubbed the Minority Report powers, a reference to the 2002 Tom Cruise movie in which a futuristic "precrime" police unit uses psychics to arrest and imprison criminals just before they carry out attacks.
But civil liberty campaigners and union bosses warned that such intrusive measures by the Home Office would destroy the relationship of trust between GPs and their patients or social workers and clients.
They would also put professionals at risk of reprisals if they are seen as police informers.
Opposition MPs said recent fiascos involving huge quantities of personal data lost or leaked by the Government raised grave doubts over plans for sharing and swapping private data.
The scheme, outlined in the Government's latest Tackling Violence Action Plan, will mean redrafting the NHS's strict privacy protection rules to encourage health staff to share patients' confidential data as part of "public interest disclosures".
Jacqui Smith is launching a new scheme to tackle violent binge drinkers
The document sets out plans for identifying individuals who may not have committed any offences but are judged to be |at risk of involvement in violence".
Tell-tale signs of those 'whose behaviour may be identified as risky' include drug addicts or alcoholics, mental health patients and youngsters who join gangs or who have been the victims of violence either in the home or on the street.
Ministers want GPs, social workers, mental health agencies, housing officials and school or college staff to provide tip-offs so that multi-agency Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, including local police, can act.
The only existing systems are for monitoring convicted criminals through probation staff, so new organisations will have to be set up to watch those thought to be at risk of committing violence.
Once an individual is assessed as a high-risk potential offender, they would be placed on local and national databases and subjected to regular reviews. The Home Office claims such measures will save lives.
Ministers have cited examples such as Michael Stone, convicted of murdering Lin and Megan Russell, or Soham murderer Ian Huntley.
They repeatedly came to the notice of medics or police, but lack of data- sharing meant threatening patterns were missed.
The Home Office said examples of "interventions" for potential criminals included regular visits from social services staff, providing mentors to young people, forcing them to attend weapons awareness classes or more after-school activities to keep them off the streets.
In the Steven Spielberg film Minority Report crimes were prevented before they had even ocurred
Union officials voiced grave concerns and accused ministers of failing to consult professionals or to address concerns they had already raised.
A spokesman for Unison, the public services union, said: "These plans threaten to build a barrier of suspicion between the public and those who deliver their services."
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "This is another ill-thought through measure, no doubt based on flawed databases and unreliable statistical analysis."
Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said: "Home Office edicts are unlikely to help skilled health professionals make delicate judgments on behalf of their patients. The danger is of vulnerable victims treating their own injuries for fear of being reported to the police."
Note: I had to edit and cut title to fit into Title Header
'Ministers hope that by spotting binge-drinkers, drug addicts and young gang members early before they commit serious crimes they can be placed on a national database and steered away from offending behaviour.'
Awesome. Add people who like liberty, guns, speech, religion. Offending behaviour.
Are they doing anything to identify people who show signs of totalitarian behavior?
Who will watch the watchers?
I’m trying to picture the drunk, violently-inclined young street thug who’s about to bludgeon or stab somebody to death for a wallet, thinking to himself: “Oh dear me, I can’t kill this guy after all, as I’m on a national database.”
nanny state ping!
not that this isn’t already happening here. in MI, if you tell your doctor you drink often, he can report it to secretary of state, and voila! you can lose your license.
Oh, this is a great plan.
You know you have too many government employees when they can waste time dreaming up this kind of excrement.
(”analyst”,”psychiatrist”) = INQUISITOR
*radio static*......."Roger that.........over" *radio static*
A chill just went up my spine!
Early this morning I caught a part of The French Connection II; Popeye Doyle has gone to France to catch the drug kingpin and gets unsatisfactory reaction and assistance from the Marseilles gendarmes; he leaves the station in disgust and bluster and sets off on his own to walk the streets in search of his target.
After an evening of bribing a bartender with drinks and getting pretty looped himself he comes out arm in arm with the tipsy bartender and notices these two rather clumsily dressed ‘undercover’ cops across the street.
After a few uneventful scenes we catch up with Doyle at the beach watching a volley ball game and tries to hit on a svelte young thing in a bikini when the ball bounces away and into Popeye’s grasp.
Just then the camera pans to an interior of a waterfront cafe nearby where the object of Doyle’s search is making final arrangements with a civilian clothes garbed U.S. military officer - identified by the bagged dry-cleaned uniform he picks up as he leaves the table.
The kingpin glances out the window and spots Doyle still at the balcony where he is trying to flirt with the girl.
The kingpin realizes he is close to apprehension and must do something.
A couple of scenes later after Doyle is seen arguing loudly with the head of the police station and demanding that his tails be taken off we catch up to him in a seedy alley with rundown storefronts and dirty garbage-strewn streets.
Looking over his shoulder, Popeye sees the cops in their guarded stance and ducks inside an open door just as a garbage truck comes rumbling by.
The two tails dash in after him as the truck moves forward and we watch Doyle leap off the back of the truck, satisfied that he has slipped his tormentors.
Just as Doyle turns a corner toward his newfound freedom, a nondescript sedan sweeps to a stop and a henchman of the kingpins hits Doyle in the head with a mighty swing of a truncheon and the others shovel him into the backseat and drive away.
Now here we have a perfect con, Doyle sees the cops sent to protect him, they still see him and try to hide, the kingpin sees Doyle while Doyle’s trying to see the kingpin, the cops lose Doyle when he spots them again, and the hitmen see Doyle while he isn’t looking.
Sometimes all the looking in the world just don’t pay off like you thought it would.
Here’s an interesting blog to read http://coppersblog.blogspot.com/
Let’s hope that our own police officers don’t get tied down like these guys have been. (The officer who started the blog is now living in Canada and working as a police officer there.)
What a joke. Social workers don't even follow up on existing reports of child abuse.
A few weeks ago, while in the E.R. with a case of acute pnuemonia, I’m lying in the bed while one nurse is inserting an i.v. and on my other side another nurse is doing the in room triage. My husband is standing at the foot of the bed. The “triage nurse” turns and asks me about my home life, who I live with, etc. The very next question was “Do you feel safe at home?” I gave her the “is this a serious question” look and told her “I do, but my husband and kids may not”. I thought she was going to fall over from laughing. She said “I know, I know, stupid question with your husband standing right there”. I was like uh, yeah!
its more fun when, right after that, they ask, “would you like us to have your husband leave the room, so you can answer that again?”
now just wait until the first time they ask YOU to leave the room so they can ask your children that. but make sure you don’t leave the room, because we now know that “not getting proper medical treatment” is enough reason to call in SWAT to remove the child from your custody.
Was any explanation given?
I LOVE your tag line.... it’s great!!
No, she just said “I have to ask”. I wasn’t beat up or anything of the sort - I was just really sick.
Apparently it’s a “new thing” if you go to the doctor or hospital in Central Texas now they “have to ask”.
You’re kidding me
They should have been doing this all along.
thank you :)
Yeah, and as bad as I felt at the time, I was really annoyed to have to answer a question like that. I was totally being sarcastic and she knew that and erupted in laughter, but I suppose had she not “gotten it”, I might have been faced with a visit from a social worker or something.... and THAT’S the scary part.
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