Let sex offenders adopt and work with children, says report

This has to rank as the most stupid idea I've ever heard! It's like asking bees not to produce honey or asking elephants not to strip the bark from trees. A report by a family law expert argues that some sex offenders should be allowed to adopt or foster children and claims that the current blanket ban is discriminatory.

"Sex offenders shouldn't all be tarred with the same brush," said Helen Reece at the London School of Economics, who wrote the report. "People need to be carefully screened for adoption and fostering, but each case should be taken on its merits."

Er...excuse me, but if a person has been charged with sex offenses, especially where they relate to pedophilia, they should not be allowed within the same town let alone house where children are seen. The idea that such offenders should be allowed to adopt and care for children is completely abhorrent. Has the world gone mad? Or is it just some wolly-headed academic's idea which does not match the landscape of fact? Like those old fart judges who sentence a pickpocket to 5 years and give a rapist only a fine, a suspended sentence, or a non-custodial sentence?

She goes on: "There shouldn't be blanket rules. What somebody has done before is not necessarily what he or she will do again. When someone has served a sentence, as far as you can, you should treat them the same as anyone else."

This is exactly the wolly-headed ideas I'm talking about. The idea that you should follow some egalitarian principle while leaving your child with a human being who has already proved that he or she cannot be trusted with the safety and care of another human being.

Her arguments seem a little odd however: "If we believe that blanket bans are an effective and legitimate means to protect children, then we should no more allow cohabiting couples to adopt or foster than convicted sex offenders," said Reece.

Whoa, am I missing something here? How can she compare with a convicted sex offender, two people presumably in love, with stable jobs and no convictions, and who want to give a home to a child who has no parents? As was said in the report claims that cohabiting couples can present more of a risk to children than sex offenders are likely to provoke anger among groups concerned with child protection.