[Ir-l] WIRED: Keeping a Who's-Naughty List

[Paul Mobbs]

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Hi all,

I was talking to someone after a lecture I gave recently who was talking 
about a schedule of a recent Youth Education Act which required youth 
services, schools, etc., to turn over their information on children who took 
part in their services to the Department for Education....

seems to link in with the whole strategy of 'youth profiling'.


P.



http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48637,00.html?tw=wn20011127

Keeping a Who's-Naughty List 

By Julia Scheeres 
WIRED, 2:00 a.m. Nov. 27, 2001 PST


London police are planning to register children who exhibit criminal 
potential in an effort to prevent them from developing into full-fledged 
lawbreakers.

Kids who tag buildings with graffiti, skip school, or even talk back to 
adults run the risk of being entered into a database program that will be 
used to monitor their behavior as they grow up, according to police sources.

Law enforcement officials say the measure is needed to combat rampant 
juvenile crime, but critics condemn it as an extreme form of police profiling.

The plan was unveiled earlier this month in a speech by Ian Blair, London's 
deputy police commissioner, to the Youth Justice Board, the government agency 
that supervises Great Britain's juvenile justice system.

Teachers, social workers, health care professionals, law enforcement agents 
and other authorities who have contact with troublemakers will contribute 
information to the database program, which will be rolled out in 11 London 
boroughs before being implemented nationally, according to a copy of the 
speech. Special squads formed by police and community workers will supervise 
the actions and behavior of children included in the registry.

"With partners in those boroughs, we intend to create an intelligence nexus, 
which will hold sensitive information about large numbers of children, many 
of whom have not yet and probably will not actually drift into active 
criminality. This is pretty revolutionary stuff," Blair said.

The deputy police commissioner said the registry was needed to combat a jump 
in juvenile delinquency. While most crime indicators have dropped in Great 
Britain, street crimes committed by children have skyrocketed, according to 
government data. Between 50 and 75 percent of the muggings that occurred on 
London's streets in the first nine months of this year were perpetrated by 
minors, studies show.

Local authorities will use the database to identify underlying causes of 
children's bad behavior and recommend therapy or substance abuse treatment 
programs.

"In this process, we have every intention of using intensive surveillance and 
supervision programs," Blair said.

Asked for a comment on the program, a spokeswoman from the Youth Justice 
Board e-mailed the following statement to Wired News:

"The Youth Justice Board is supportive of the idea of increasing information 
sharing in respect of young people at risk of becoming involved in 
criminality, and we will be joining with the Met Police to look at ways this 
can be achieved."

A Metropolitan Police spokesman refused to discuss further details of the 
plan, saying it was still in an exploratory stage.

Privacy concerns aren't expected to derail the effort. In his speech, Blair 
said that Section 115 of the country's Crime and Disorder Act, which allows 
for disclosure of private information to investigate crimes, may override the 
Data Protection Act, which regulates information-sharing among government 
agencies.

But the director of Privacy International, Simon Davies, said the registries 
were tantamount to police "profiling gone mad."

"I shudder to think of the action that could be taken by authorities with 
such a database," Davies said. "All I can see coming out of this is greater 
criminalization of children and heightened discrimination against certain 
racial groups."

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