Emerging abuse stories

[Bernie Gunther]

BBC are using some interesting language to talk about the big child porn bust announced today:

More than 650 suspected paedophiles have been arrested as part of a six-month operation targeting people accessing child abuse images online.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said among the 660 were teachers, medical staff, former police officers, a social services worker and scout leader.

More than 400 children have been protected as a result, the agency said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28326128

These would presumably be the same 400-odd kids who the Guardian described as being "taken into care"?

Does anyone else get the idea that 'protected' is a deliberately misleading euphemism in this context?

That it's perhaps intended to obfuscate the uncomfortable fact (assuming the Guardian is accurate) that these kids have just been dragged off into the same care system that: Saville, Smith and a whole bunch of other privileged nonces yet to be charged, have been using as a source of children to rape for the past few decades?

 

[bluescreen]

BBC are using some interesting language to talk about the big child porn bust announced today:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28326128

These would presumably be the same 400-odd kids who the Guardian described as being "taken into care"?

Does anyone else get the idea that 'protected' is a deliberately misleading euphemism in this context?

That it's perhaps intended to obfuscate the uncomfortable fact (assuming the Guardian is accurate) that these kids have just been dragged off into the same care system that: Saville, Smith and a whole bunch of other privileged nonces yet to be charged, have been using as a source of children to rape for the past few decades?

The same thought occurred to me, Bernie. The state is a cruel and negligent parent.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I think there are potentially a few things going on with this announcement.

1) Be seen to be "doing something" at a time when widespread public concern about unaccountable child-raping toffs is at an all-time high.

2) To set a precedent for the principle articulated in the quote below, which I think should be seen as potentially applicable across a whole range of online activities (not just collusion in child abuse) that the government or business might wish to crack down on. This is particularly disturbing given the tendency towards policing 'thought crimes' that's emerged over the last decade or so.

He refused to elaborate further, adding: "I want as much confusion and fear to remain in the minds of those who want to perpetrate this sort of crime as possible so I'm not going to enable them to thwart and avoid our approaches and our responses."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28326128

See also:

Assistant Chief Constable Holland told BBC News the investigation would also send a message to deter would-be offenders: "We are there, visibly policing the internet and you will be caught so don't even try."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28331719

3) To be (as Laptop suggested on the other thread) a PR boost for GCHQ and the other official snoops (e.g. NCA ones) ahead of the 'snoopers charter' bill being rushed through.

See e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/lords-criticise-rushed-emergency-surveillance-bill-uk

This big announcement could therefore be seen as "win-win" at a time when the Snowden revelations had put spooks and snoops on the back foot. This way they can harness public concern about paedogeddon to promote more snooping, maybe set the precedent for a few thought crime convictions etc, while distracting the public from asking inconvenient questions about whether significant numbers of the Monday Club and the Security Services properly belong in the beast wing at Belmarsh ...

 

[elbows]

That it's perhaps intended to obfuscate the uncomfortable fact (assuming the Guardian is accurate) that these kids have just been dragged off into the same care system that: Saville, Smith and a whole bunch of other privileged nonces yet to be charged, have been using as a source of children to rape for the past few decades?

I do not think it fair to describe it as the same care system as it was back then. Without wishing to be in any way complacent about contemporary abuse, the large institution model is well out of favour for this sort of care, and that will make some kind of difference to the risk children are placed in when they are placed in this system.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I do not think it fair to describe it as the same care system as it was back then. Without wishing to be in any way complacent about contemporary abuse, the large institution model is well out of favour for this sort of care, and that will make some kind of difference to the risk children are placed in when they are placed in this system.

Sure, distinction understood and agreed, but the perception is still there, at least potentially.

Otherwise why the obvious euphemism?

 

[elbows]

Sure, distinction understood and agreed, but the perception is still there, at least potentially.

Otherwise why the obvious euphemism?

Protected? I read that as typical big-upping of the arrests, and I didn't think of it as a brand new phenomenon to hear it used in the context of children removed from families where someone had been accessing child porn. I will do some research to see if I can find prior examples.

 

[kenny g]

Interesting to read the recent story of the potential paedo cannibal from Canterbury. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-28313483 Reminded me of my posts a few years ago suggesting the place may be a paedo nexus. Anti-paedophile demo - Weymouth

 

[Bernie Gunther]

What made me wonder is that they used it several times and didn't mention that the kids had been taken into care even once.

That makes it look like a euphemism rather than a synonym.

 

[elbows]

OK yes, similar language has been used by some describing Operation Ore:

For those behind it, the investigation was a success. It raised awareness of exploitation and led to 154 children being protected from abuse, according to Ceop.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20237564

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Interesting. Still looks like a euphemism to me though, if in that case the 154 children were also actually taken into care.

 

[elbows]

What made me wonder is that they used it several times and didn't mention that the kids had been taken into care even once.

That makes it look like a euphemism rather than a synonym.

It's not clear to me that the terms is supposed to reference only those taken into care. It could also refer to those who were already in some kind of care and have now been moved because of potential abuse, and perhaps even those kids who had contact with people arrested who worked with children. And other forms of protection such as barring relatives who the child does not live with, from contact, or moving the child from one parent to another if the parents are separated.

I will say that the original BBC story about this was badly written and missing some important details in places. I've not had time to read it or any subsequent bbc stories again, but quickly stumbling on some newspaper articles I found more detail straight away.

eg: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ors-police-officers-and-teachers-9608889.html

Among those arrested were:

:: A foster carer with no previous allegations of offending who was looking after a 12-year-old vulnerable child at the time of his arrest.

:: A grandfather with access to a 17 grandchildren, two of whom had previous disclosed abuse by him.

:: A suspect who admitted that he had been viewing indecent images of children for 30 years from the age of 16 and had regularly travelled to South-east Asia for sexual purposes, according to police.

Officers said that 431 children had been identified at risk of abuse and steps had been taken to protect them.

 

[tufty79]

rotherham's mayor stepped down a few weeks before his arrest for historic sexual assault on a 13 year old..
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28319557

 

[cesare]

What made me wonder is that they used it several times and didn't mention that the kids had been taken into care even once.

That makes it look like a euphemism rather than a synonym.

I agree - it 's language designed to evoke confidence and reassurance in "protection" rather than "oh aye, more care lol". It'll be some crisis management PR firm penning or amending press releases etc.

 

[laptop]

It's not clear to me that the terms is supposed to reference only those taken into care. It could also refer to those who were already in some kind of care and have now been moved because of potential abuse, and perhaps even those kids who had contact with people arrested who worked with children. And other forms of protection such as barring relatives who the child does not live with, from contact, or moving the child from one parent to another if the parents are separated.

Sounds right to me.

I was first inclined to blame the Guardian sub-editor. Usual instinct to replace the reporter's "technical" language with "something the readers will relate to" - which is false.

But then I saw the staffer on the byline is a "media and technology reporter"; and the other one is a student (intern?)

 

[elbows]

I'm sure many of the flaws of press reports about this stuff relate to the original press release/statement, but even so I continue to struggle with the idea that the child protection euphemism is new or simply the product of PR slugs.

For example section 5 of the children act 1989 is titled 'Protection of Children'.

 

[Wilf]

They are using the term 'safeguarded' in this:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...overwhelmed-660-suspects-arrested-paedophilia
.. adding even more to the idea of it being a mixture of taken into care, adult removed from house, no contact with person x etc.

 

[elbows]

'safeguarded' is straight from early on in the press release:

http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov..../411-uk-wide-operation-snares-660-paedophiles

More than 400 children across the UK have been safeguarded.

Protection is referred to later in several places.

edited to add that one of the police has the term in his title:

Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the National Policing Lead for Child Protection and Abuse Investigations

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Yes, the report I read used the term "safeguarding" - which (while I'm not at all expert in the field) I understand as meaning those children are now on the radar as far as police / social services are concerned. It does not mean that those children will automatically and immediately be dragged away from their homes.

Although if those children are being sexually abused by their parent/s, i'm not convinced that leaving those children with their parents is all that great an idea.

And it does not necessarily just mean children living where someone has accessed child porn - if images are circulating that show an identifiable child being abused by an identifiable adult, then the child in the image is likely to be considered as in need of protection.

I'm not quite sure what some people are arguing here. I freely admit that I would not want to touch social work of any sort with the proverbial barge-pole, but it does seem that the tendency is to criticise social workers for failing to intervene if anything bad happens, then criticise them for intervening...

 

[shygirl]

Clive Driscoll will be speaking on bbc London news tonight. He's the one who was removed from the investigation into child abuse in Lambeth care homes.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

What I'm arguing is that there is some news management going on here.

Just to be clear.

 

[kenny g]

What I'm arguing is that there is some news management going on here.

Just to be clear.

"Some" barely covers it. There is crisis management in the house, and there has been for the past two weeks.

 

[elbows]

What I'm arguing is that there is some news management going on here.

Just to be clear.

Well yes, as always, but there are several other important components in the timing and purpose of this investigation.

As I understand it the National Crime Agency only got going last October, and this bust has been described as a 6 month operation.

And it appears that the fact it would include a number of distinct operational commands including a 'Child Exploitation and Online Protection' was announced by Theresa May in June 2011.

I will use this latter factoid to say that in terms of public concerns, online child porn and the people that make or consume it must surely have been well up the list for ages, and will remain so, despite all the other stuff that has come into focus in the wake of the Savile stuff. Certainly the government and other elements of the state now have many extra reasons to be seen to take this stuff seriously, but I refuse to put this down to simply being feeble attempts to distract from abuses by those with political etc power, historical or contemporary.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

As I argue in post #63 above, I think that there are a number of potential agendas intersecting in the PR exploitation of the operation under discussion, not all of them directly connected with child abuse.

 

[elbows]

Sure, I'm mostly seeking to add additional agendas and timing explanations to the list you started.

If I ask myself whether the stuff I mentioned was reason to expect them to mount this kind of operation even if the last couple of years of historical revelations hadn't happened, and if there were no controversial contemporary snooping legislation, I still think yes. I am happy to concede that the stuff you mentioned may have affected the precise timing of the announcement, but I refuse to see it as the primary driving force of this operation.

 

[Quartz]

It's sad the way this whole thing is becoming politicised, as it's clear that (going by dead people) it wasn't confined to our Tory overlords and indeed there seems to have been some camaraderie between the alleged offenders.

Remember that in the optimates, the other parties are not enemies but opponents. As one old MP said to a newbie, "My dear boy, your enemies aren't over there; they're behind you."

 

[bluescreen]

Remember that in the optimates, the other parties are not enemies but opponents. As one old MP said to a newbie, "My dear boy, your enemies aren't over there; they're behind you."

Quartz, you think we're in that sort of political situation even now? When a lot of them went to the same sort of school, perhaps - I'm hoping things are different now.

 

[elbows]

Quartz, you think we're in that sort of political situation even now? When a lot of them went to the same sort of school, perhaps - I'm hoping things are different now.

On that particular front I doubt things are different now. In some other ways things are probably a bit different now, we shall see.

 

[Quartz]

Quartz, you think we're in that sort of political situation even now? When a lot of them went to the same sort of school, perhaps - I'm hoping things are different now.

There needs to be a lot of cross-party co-operation for Parliament to work. From pairing to written questions to Select Committees etc. And really, I actually want MPs of all parties to work together to do their best for the country.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

BBC are using some interesting language to talk about the big child porn bust announced today:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28326128

These would presumably be the same 400-odd kids who the Guardian described as being "taken into care"?

Does anyone else get the idea that 'protected' is a deliberately misleading euphemism in this context?

That it's perhaps intended to obfuscate the uncomfortable fact (assuming the Guardian is accurate) that these kids have just been dragged off into the same care system that: Saville, Smith and a whole bunch of other privileged nonces yet to be charged, have been using as a source of children to rape for the past few decades?

I think it's probably a case of plod saying "protected", which is spin but not too surprising, and the BBC being too fucking lazy to do anything beyond regurgitate what's stuck in front of them.

 

[bluescreen]

400 children, though. Even assuming a large proportion will be "protected" by having the alleged abuser removed from the household, and some just put on the At Risk register, that's a hell of a lot of emergency placements to be arranged. Meanwhile, are they building even more prisons to house the expected number of convicted? I am still trying to get my head around the amount of horror and heartbreak implied by this story. TBH, the number of children safeguarded surprised me because I'd imagined that most of the stuff these people would be looking at would be from the far east. Or perhaps, even if that was so, TPTB assume that any child in the viewer's household is also at risk.

ETA: Not to suggest that children outside the UK are any less victims, just that that it may be more problematic to safeguard them, and not something the NCA can easily claim to have done.