Somebody think of the children!

As I summised in my last post, teachers aren’t allowed to put sunscreen on children, conkers and paper planes are banned, and children should wear sweaters at school in the summer, all for “the child’s safety”.

According to a news article in The Daily Mail last month, police can arrest children, hold them in a cell for hours, take DNA samples, use mouth swabs, and take mugshots for “the child’s safety”.

Now if a 12-year-old child was caught stealing a car, I could understand the measures taken to ensure further crimes by the child don’t go undetected. But these children were making a treehouse.

I think the police have gone way overboard on this one. But Superintendent Stuart Johnson believes making a treehouse is “destroying an ornamental cherry tree” and “anti-social behaviour”. He tries to justify their actions by saying “By targeting what may seem relatively low-level crime we aim to prevent it developing into more serious matters.”

There are many rungs on the criminal ladder between making a treehouse and stealing cars, Superintendent Stuart Johnson. Let’s hope by making examples of these children, storing their mugshots and DNA in a database and giving them enough stress to have difficulty sleeping for weeks, that other children thinking of making such outrageous contraptions will be too scared to leave the house.

[Update] Good Lord! Not chalk on the pavement! Arrest those little buggers! Hopscotch leads to terrorism!