The story about the Nottingham student who was raped after being turfed off a bus for being 20p short of her fare is one of those stories that really sticks with you. The most commonly asked question has been ‘why didn’t anyone intervene?’ Why didn’t anyone just lend the girl the money? Why didn’t the bus driver just let her off? Over at the Daily Telegraph Jenny McCartney addresses the story, calling it a ‘shameful retreat by the British’, citing the ‘don’t get involved' 'mantra of our age’.
She references an experiment by Peter Whittle: ‘In a new and insightful book, Being British: What’s Wrong With It? the author Peter Whittle examines, among other things, the cultural malaise that now affects our behaviour in public spaces. As an experiment, he decided politely to challenge the perpetrators of minor offences such as loud swearing or putting feet up on train seats. He found that “a fundamental shift had occurred… It was I who was considered the troublemaker, the rude one.”’
Why has this fundamental shift occurred? Why are we more scared now? There are arguments about social breakdown, a lack of authority, feral teenagers running wild, as you might be led to believe. But is it simpler than that?
Have we been just been hoodwinked into believing that around every corner there’s someone willing, nay wanting, to hurt us? Whereas we once operated under the mantra innocent until proven guilty, we now approach with caution, and presume guilt, until a CRB check has proven otherwise. Think of all the things that we’ve now come to believe we need to protect us. Health and safety is there to protect us – even blu-tack is scary now – as are CRB checks. The government wants to snoop on our emails to keep us safer. Want to adopt? Then be prepared for a serious and intense look at your past. And the past is key here. The fact that some convictions cannot be wiped sends out the message once a criminal, always a criminal. Rehabilitation isn’t an option.
I overheard a debate the other week about how CRB checks should be removed. One party was determined that they kept us safer, and that if you’ve got nothing to hide then you’ll be fine. The other was adamant that not only were they intrusive and expensive, but they could also easily be replaced by good, old-fashioned, common sense.
And it seems that that’s what to fear. The fear of making your own judgement. The response of the bus company who employed the driver who didn’t allow the girl onto the bus tells you what you need to know. Instead of saying ‘this was a serious failure of judgement by an employee’, they said he ‘didn’t follow training’. You know, that training, which is necessary because otherwise a bus driver wouldn’t know it was right not to chuck a young woman off a bus at 3am. Those boxes, which say that you’re ‘trained’, are there for a reason. If you use your common sense and it’s failed you, you’re to blame. But if you’ve followed the rules, ticked every box, and something has still gone wrong, then you’re safe.
The institutionalising of ensuring safety has only made us more afraid.