PRIME Minister Blair yesterday revealed his plan to use the same profiling techniques that are being used to identify ‘terrorists’ to identify working class ‘problem families’, whose offspring might develop into ‘menaces of society’.
He told his audience: ‘I am saying that where it is clear, as it very often is, at young age, that children are at risk of being brought up in a dysfunctional home where there are multiple problems, say of drug abuse or offending, then instead of waiting until the child goes off the rails, we should act early enough, with the right help, support and disciplined framework for the family, to prevent it.’
He insisted that this method is ‘not stigmatising the child or the family’.
Blair added: ‘The reality is that of course material poverty for some families is indeed the root of their problem. . . But for a minority of families, their material poverty may be acute but is not necessarily linked to lack of work or income per se, but may well be the result of a multiplicity of lifestyle issues – drug or alcohol abuse, mental illness, or simply that no-one has ever bothered to offer them a way out. . .
‘Their poverty is, not just about poverty of income, but poverty of aspiration, of opportunity, of prospects of advancement.’
He continued: ‘Next week Hilary Armstrong will launch our Action Plan. We have defined four groups. . .
‘First, looked-after children. There are approximately 61,000 children in care at any one time. They run very high risks of being unemployed, having mental health problems and becoming teenage parents. . .
‘Second, families with complex problems – the Respect Task Force identified 7,500 such families. A child born into the most disadvantaged five per cent of families is 100 times more likely to have multiple problems at age 15 than a child from the 50 per cent best-off families. One of the biggest problems we face is parents who misuse alcohol. . .
‘Third, teenage pregnancies, of which there are 40,000 in the UK at any one time. Like looked-after children, teenage parents are more likely to end up unemployed, have mental health problems and themselves have children who have babies as teenagers. . .
‘And fourth, mental health patients. Between 125,000 and 600,000 people in Britain have a severe and enduring mental health problem. . . The links with other problems are notable: half of those mis-using drugs and alcohol have mental health problems. . .’
Blair continued: ‘The Social Exclusion Plan will be guided by five principles: early intervention, systematically identifying what works, better co-ordination of the many separate agencies, personal rights and responsibilities and intolerance of poor performance.’
Blair concluded after his review of the profiled suspects: ‘So we can predict.
‘Help and support can be provided.
‘It might mean that a more intense health-visitor programme is arranged. Or it might mean parenting classes are offered; or help with drug or alcohol abuse.
‘Or placing families within projects like the Dundee Project where the family is given help but within a proper, disciplined framework.’
In the Dundee Project, the ‘problem families’ were put in specially constructed blocks of secure dwellings, surrounded by wire fencing, and supervised by security guards where they were kept under curfew.
It turns out that all Blair is intending to do is persecute the most vulnerable groups in society and prevent them from ‘spoiling’ the lives of his middle class New Labour supporters.
