Licensed to Hug
Civitas, 10 February 2010
On Monday, the BBC’s Panorama programme asked “are you a danger to kids?” to highlight the dramatic escalation of child protection measures, and the absurdity of Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks. This crucial issue is detailed in Civitas’ publication Licensed to Hug by Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow.
Since the establishment of the Criminal Records Bureau in 2002, more than a third of British adults have had to get a certificate to say they are safe to be near children, and the numbers affected are increasing. Panorama’s report this week highlighted that the 9 million people working with children and vulnerable adults will eventually be on a massive new database. In Licensed to Hug, Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow argue that this growth of police vetting has created a sense of mistrust.
Communities are forged through the joint commitment of adults to the socialisation of children. Now, adults are afraid to interact with any child not their own. As a result, many adults are discouraged from volunteering with children, which robs kids of many good role models. The generations are becoming distant, as adults suspect each other and children are taught to suspect adults.
The CRB vetting system also frequently violates individual liberty because it does not work on the assumption that individuals are innocent until proved guilty. The Independent Safeguard Authority (ISA) is known to detail previous, unfounded allegations on CRB checks, so an adult who is wrongly accused and then vindicated could find themselves dogged by ‘suspicion’ and labelled as a danger to children.
Defendants of the system argue that the CRB checks provide an important ‘pre-emptive’ approach (“better to be safe than sorry” is a common mantra), but Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow point out that the vetting can give a false sense of security as it can only identify those who have offended in the past and been caught – not what people will do after they are passed as fit to be near children. The vetting culture also encourages risk aversion: there is a feeling that it is better to ignore young people, even if they are behaving in an anti-social manner, and even if they are in trouble and need help, rather than risk accusations of improper conduct.
Licensed to Hug argues that children need to have contact with a range of adult members of the community for their education and socialisation, but the authors warn that ‘this form of collaboration, which has traditionally underpinned intergenerational relationships, is now threatened by a regime that insists that adult/child encounters must be mediated through a security check’.
Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow call for a more common-sense approach to adult/child relations, based on the assumption that the vast majority of adults can be relied on to help and support children, and that the healthy interaction between generations enriches children’s lives. Instead of creating an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, Licensed to Hug suggests that we need to ‘halt the juggernaut of regulation’ and, instead, behave as if the majority of adults have no predatory attitudes towards children but, on the contrary, can be relied on to help them. If we could encourage greater openness and more frequent contact between the generations, we would all benefit.
Licensed to Hug by Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow is available to buy from Civitas.