Middle-class voices hush up a criminal waste of resources


Mark Johnson writes in The Guardian about the public reaction to the new Independent Safeguarding Authority:

As an author who speaks in schools, and sometimes gives lifts to other people’s children, I should be outraged. But I’m just confused. I’ve got the sort of criminal record that means the VBS will certainly vet and bar me. Yet it’s my criminal record that makes me particularly qualified to work with young offenders. It’s my years of drug addiction that give me a special understanding of addicts. It’s the changes I’ve made in my life that offenders and addicts want to hear about. A prison governor told me I can have more effect on his inmates in 30 minutes than he can in three years.

Like so many other ex-offenders who have come back into society, I have a passion for helping those I understand best. I believe our work can directly affect the crime rate by helping others towards their own rehabilitation. But if the ISA gets its way, we will not be allowed on to their register because those we can help the most are too vulnerable to be exposed to us.

It’s hard to stand up to the massive PR machine that says the ISA will protect our children from monsters who want to harm them. Of course, no one wants children exposed to paedophiles. But the sledgehammer lands on 11 million people – that’s the incredible number of those whose personal details will sit on its database – without hitting any real targets.