Kelly and Sex Scandal
Ruth Kelly has to go, the whole thing is now just getting too silly for words; at first she refuses to say who made the decision saying that she was the misister responsible, then she says that she will not resign. Well these statements are contradictory, either she is the minister in charge of the department or she is not; now we all know that she is, so the ultimate responsibility rests firmly on her shoulders, i.e. the buck stops with her; result = she should be the one to resign as she is the one who ultimately cocked up!
If we think about what happend to bring this sad state of affairs about we find that the answer is because we have a situation - two seperate lists, the sex offenders register and list 99 - primarily designed so that the left hand can never know what the right hand is doing. This is just crazy, we do not need two lists, a person is either a sex offender or they are not so one list should be sufficient for this purpose; that is always providing the means to ensure that people are not put onto the register for the wrong reasons; personally I do not trust such mechanisms. There are also serious issues to be addressed here, for example, the issue of people who are only cautioned and whether or not they are a problem, a caution suggests not. There again there are people who will accept a caution for a variety of reasons, so maybe the suggestion that they are not a problem is slightly off centre already. Clearly this thing has to be thoroughly thought through, however I do not trust this government to think it through, given past examples of knee jerk reactions to situations; this should be undertaken by a completely independent body over which the government has absolutely no control.
Edited in response to comment...
What is a sex offender?
I suppose that I should have done this in the first place as somebody was bound to ask; well this is the best definition I could find; the source = Gillespie AA, 'Paedophiles and the Crime and Disorder Bill', [1998]. I hope that satisfies the requested criteria.
If we think about what happend to bring this sad state of affairs about we find that the answer is because we have a situation - two seperate lists, the sex offenders register and list 99 - primarily designed so that the left hand can never know what the right hand is doing. This is just crazy, we do not need two lists, a person is either a sex offender or they are not so one list should be sufficient for this purpose; that is always providing the means to ensure that people are not put onto the register for the wrong reasons; personally I do not trust such mechanisms. There are also serious issues to be addressed here, for example, the issue of people who are only cautioned and whether or not they are a problem, a caution suggests not. There again there are people who will accept a caution for a variety of reasons, so maybe the suggestion that they are not a problem is slightly off centre already. Clearly this thing has to be thoroughly thought through, however I do not trust this government to think it through, given past examples of knee jerk reactions to situations; this should be undertaken by a completely independent body over which the government has absolutely no control.
Edited in response to comment...
What is a sex offender?
I suppose that I should have done this in the first place as somebody was bound to ask; well this is the best definition I could find; the source = Gillespie AA, 'Paedophiles and the Crime and Disorder Bill', [1998]. I hope that satisfies the requested criteria.
posted by BondBloke at 11:46 am
2 Comments:
Question: what is a 'sex offender'? Without a clear answer to that (and there is no clear answer at present), it is hard to make firm judgements about this matter.
PS I promised to bring some reason and moderation to the rantings of the BondBloke.
Ruth Kelly's two statements (para 1) are not contradictory. Being responsible for a stae of affairs does not imly resignation it doeshowever mean that they are the ones who are ultimately accountable.
The reason the two lists are distinct is that List 99 does not cover just sexual offences but crimes of violence and dishonesty
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