Pre-Crime

The police – despite being told to fuck off on a fairly regular basis, despite being told that a DNA database of the population will not magically make their lives easier, still keep coming back with their desire to impose a totalitarian state:

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert.

So, because a child might commit an offence in adult life, they should be tagged by the police. And you thought Minority Report was a piece of fiction. To these control freaks, it’s an instruction manual.

Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.

Some experts believe is it possible to identify future offending traits – theoretically. And on the basis of this theory we need a debate on tagging children with the aim of turning them into suspects before any offence has taken place. I’m sorry, but am I the only one who finds this morally bankrupt suggestion abhorrent in its entirety?

Sure, let’s have a debate. It should go something like this:

Control freak: Let’s tag children who might commit an offence in adult life.

Public: Go fuck yourself. Leave our kids alone (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Unfortunately, such is the political climate we now live in, these nasty little fascists are given a credence they do not deserve.

‘If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,’ said Pugh. ‘You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won’t. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.’

If that comment doesn’t send a chill down your spine, then you have no concept of the horrors of a totalitarian society. Go read up on 20th Century European and Soviet history. Ask yourself what would those regimes have done with this technology? How would a child so identified ever shrug off the stigma? Also, bear in mind that they will be suspects forever, never knowing when there would be a knock on the door and the police waiting to cart them off to the station to “help with their inquiries”.

A disruptive child does not necessarily grow up to be a criminal. We once had this quaint concept of innocent until proven guilty. The idea of pre-crime, of identifying children and treating them as suspects for the rest of their lives is deeply, deeply repugnant in a civilised society. Gary Pugh is a monster; no other epithet adequately fits.

Pugh admitted that the deeply controversial suggestion raised issues of parental consent, potential stigmatisation and the role of teachers in identifying future offenders, but said society needed an open, mature discussion on how best to tackle crime before it took place.

Oh, my, how generous of him to consider the little matter of parental consent and stigmatisation. These two things alone should rule out his nasty idea. If Gary Pugh was remotely mature, he would have ruled this idea out as antisocial – indeed, sociopathic – and said no more about it.

I would humbly suggest that come the revolution, we reserve a length of hempen rope and a lamp post for Gary Pugh. The man is evil – and that is not a word I bandy about lightly.

————————————————————————————

There’s a footnote at the bottom of the article regarding Oyster cards:

Concern over the issue of civil liberties will be further amplified by news yesterday that commuters using Oyster smart cards could have their movements around cities secretly monitored under new counter-terrorism powers being sought by the security services.

Sigh… This is a damn good reason not to have one. And I never will.

Every day, I find this country more despicable. Not the people, not the place, but the malignant control freaks who run it. The sociopaths who want to treat us all as suspects and spy on our every move, who use the bogy man of terrorism to scare us into compliance.

There probably isn’t enough rope…

———————————————————————————-

Update: Doing the rounds, I see Mr E and Tim have both commented on this story. Their views are predictably similar to mine.