http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... -year.html
Nearly 127,000 children forced to have criminal record checks each year
By Martin Beckford and Tom Whitehead
Published: 2:46PM GMT 06 Dec 2009
The number of children forced to undergo Criminal Records Bureau checks has doubled in recent years in a dramatic expansion of Labour’s anti-paedophile vetting regime.
More than 125,000 teenagers are now having their backgrounds checked each year, official figures show, even if they just help younger pupils at school or volunteer as sports coaches.
Young people whose parents are childminders must also be vetted for criminal convictions because of the supposed risk they pose to toddlers being looked after at their family home, while some students on social work courses must pay to find out if they are deemed a danger by the state.
The number of under-18s undergoing criminal records checks will increase still further next year, when anyone who works or volunteers with the young or vulnerable is forced to register with the Government’s new safeguarding quango, the Independent Safeguarding Authority.
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Home Office figures disclosed in the report to be published on Tuesday, called An Education in Mistrust, show that in 2002-03, a total of 61,730 under-18s were subjected to CRB checks. Most of them would have been ineligible to vote, drive or buy alcohol.
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