“… potential troublemakers …”

This has obvious White Rose relevance:

Tony Blair is to announce plans to put up to half a million children deemed at risk of becoming criminals or getting into other trouble on a new computer register.

Teachers, family doctors and other professionals working with youngsters will be asked to name potential troublemakers whose personal details will then be placed on the database.

The new “identification, tracking and referral” system will allow the authorities to share information on vulnerable children, including their potential for criminal activity.

It will be an extension of the child protection register which, at present, is restricted to listing the names and addresses of children who are vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.

Professionals will be encouraged to include other factors, such as the likelihood of teenage pregnancy or the risk of “social exclusion”, in deciding which children should be monitored.

I think the scary thing about this is the combination of the precision and reach of a computer database with the subjectivity of some of the judgements concerning “potential” that are stored on it. Plus: Who gets to look at this database, and what decisions do they make in the light of the opinions collected in it?

The criminal law, in contrast, is (or ought to be) about what you have done, not about what someone merely thinks you might do.

But as so often here, I report, but can only speculate about those implications that we all need to think about. Perhaps others can be more definite.