Condemned though innocent

The Criminal Records Bureau, part of the way by which the government collects data on us, is not just a pain in the neck because of the time a check may sometimes take. It is also prone to serious mistakes.

In the twelve months to March 31st, 2009, no fewer than 1,570 individuals suffered from errors or potential errors, from mistakes made by the CRB, compared with 680 in the previous year. During the year the Bureau processed 3.9. million certificates, an increase of 5000,000 on the previous year and the highest since the Bureau began in 2002. In its first year it checked 1.5 million people.

The errors are of three kinds:
Some people have been accused of more serious offences that any for which they came to be on the register.
Some people are the victims of a confusion in identity.
In some cases people are given a clean record because offences have been omitted.
Many are ignorant of the fact that they are on the register, and discover only when a need arises. A woman recently discovered she was on the register because she left older children playing in a park while she dashed briefly to a local shop.