..and throw away the key!

The Venables case is making the headlines, today, along with the NSPCC calling for more powers for social workers to see potentially abused children alone.  Locally, it's reported that ambulances were queuing like B list celebrities at the Oscars outside Glan Clwyd hospital yesterday, while a quote from 'Disgusted' (presumably of Acacia Avenue) bemoaned the situation with regard to a patient she'd brought over.

At first glance, these stories share nothing in common. But scratch the surface, and there are more common elements than initially - at least - meet the eye.

In a very real sense behind each of these events lies a trend;  a trend where society appears to be failing its most vulnerable. This is not a political issue, although the parties concerned will doubtless try to accuse each other of being in some way responsible for it, along with the demise of sterling, the state of the NHS and the lunar occultations of the Pleiades. 

But Venables' crime, the call for social workers to be given the power to see vulnerable children away from their parents and the endless lines of waiting patients all beg the question of whether society can deal with the deranged, the dangerous and the desperate, without deploying resources far and away greater than any thus far deployed.

There are those whose answer to the likes of Venables, child molesters, rapists and parking wardens is "Lock 'em all up and throw away the key!", a somewhat impractical option, given that someone has to clean out the resultant mess left by decomposing bodies, or - less often heard - "Hang 'em all!", but such solutions themselves pose other questions. If we reintroduce the death penalty, can we be certain that no miscarriages of justice will occur?  These are difficult to remedy, once the victim is no more.

Imprisonment where 'Life means life'. the rallying call of the far right for aeons, it seems, also ignores the fact that resources for more prisons will be needed, and the health issues of a rapidly ageing prison population don't bear thinking about.  Besides which, it's also important to remember that we lock up a significantly higher percentage of our population than any other European country, which itself suggests that either our population behaves more badly or we simply have too many laws, any infractions of which can land you in pokey.

In fact, successive governments have been struggling, and mostly failing, to deal with the problem, even when they had the resources. In the days ahead, when resources will be stretched thin, perhaps it's time to start to think about what social issues we ought to prioritise as a society, and which we can afford to let slip. But given the increasingly interlinked nature of our society, perhaps we need to start asking our local Candidates how they would address the issue in not more than three sentences, and without using the phrases 'Lessons to be Learnt", "Maximisation of Resources" and anything else that fails to answer the question asked.

Social issues a`re difficult to resolve, and we're not as good at it as some of our European neighbours, but the impending election at least gives us the chance to ask them what they would do.  So long as we demand a straight, unequivocal, honest answer.  And good luck with that one.