The Bogey Man Lives.

I was talking to a police inspector the other day about a seminar he attended on modern policing and what 'protecting the public' actually means. I have to say it was quite disturbing. He didn't tell me anything I didn't already know but once you put the pieces together like a jigsaw, the final picture is unsettling. He was saying that when he joined up it was perceived that there were good guys and bad guys and the good guys locked up the bad guys. Modern thinking says the person sat next to you is the bad guy, not the burglar in the stripy shirt with a bag of swag.

It's a fact that most murders are carried out by people known to the victim, perhaps a relative, partner or acquaintance. Murders by strangers are extremely rare. The same is true of rape, stranger rapes do happen but are very uncommon compared to rapes by offenders known to the victim. The same applies to other types of sexual and violent assaults on both adults and children, there are such people as predatory paedophiles, but they don't become predatory until they have been caught molesting their own children or nephews and nieces and denied access to easy pickings There are a whole range of crimes ranging from blackmail and threats to kill to making indecent images and sexual exploitation where the victim knows the offender.

As for your children, well, they're safe at school. There's a security system and the gates are locked aren't they? Unfortunately, the people most likely to do them harm are locked in there with them. They are more likely to be beaten up, psychologically intimidated' bullied and sexually assaulted by fellow pupils than by random people in the street, even if it happens outside school hours. Everyone has heard of kids going through the most awful trials at school sometimes ending up in suicide but somehow it's just' playground stuff' and doesn't really count. There are drug dealers who hang around outside schools but then again there's Jimmy in year eleven whose older brother can get whatever drugs you want. So who exactly are we locking the gates against?

These offenders are all victims themselves in the modern parlance. The fact that he's six foot tall, built like a tank and just beat you black and blue doesn't mean he's not a vulnerable victim himself and suffering from mental health issues. He's not the bad guy, he's just not getting the appropriate support from the mental health professionals for his anger management issues. It just so happens he is also your uncle,brother, ex-boyfriend or husband.

So how do you protect the public when the enemy is also the victim's friend or relative? It would need a level of intrusion by the police 'behind closed doors' as the saying goes which would never be acceptable to civil liberties campaigners, remember 1984 and Winston's  television which spied on him? How do you stop the trolls on social media sites for example? Perhaps there should be electronic spies monitoring your every update, alternatively, shut it down altogether. It's the old 'with freedom comes responsibility adage. If some people negate their responsibility to their fellow man do you restrict the freedoms of all?

Sorry, no answers, only questions but one thing I do know, the bogeyman does exist but he is not hiding under the bed or in the cupboard, you've been looking in the wrong place.