Dear Friends,
Consider the following poll results of this morning:
<http://www.tv3.co.nz/News/tabid/183/Default.aspx>
Should police have more powers to seize children at risk of abuse?
Yes 86%
No 12%
Not sure 2%
(Results as at 10:35am Mon 30 July 2007.)
The stories of abuse and death of children in the home are horrendous, and calls for action are needed and welcomed.
What kind of action is needed? This poll intimates that more police intervention is needed: intervention BEFORE any injury or crime has been committed. This is a very dangerous precedent. All parents will come under suspicion. Suspicion -- mere suspicion, not actual facts or real behaviour -- will be the criteria for police intervention. And Police intervention in relation to children means CYFS intervention and what they call "alternative placement": that is, your children are taken away and given to someone else.
The Police already have the power to break into homes and remove children, using whatever force in necessary, WITHOUT a warrant, if they belive the child is in immanent danger (see Section 42 of the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act 1989).
It is during times of crisis and when the public mind is very angry at such ugly crimes as we've seen against wee children in the last few weeks that the state can be given -- in a very unwise, reactionary way -- license to remove more liberty, license to give more unnecessary interventionary powers to agents of the state.
Regards,
Craig S. Smith
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