A new government proposal will require every parent who volunteers to drive children to a sports or cultural event on behalf of their local school or club to be CRB checked. Apparently, this means that as many as 11 ½ million parents may require CRB clearance in order to continue doing what they have  no doubt been doing for decades – generously offering their time and resources to enable kids to enjoy themselves. The rationale given for the legislation is that it will help protect children against sexual predators.

Given that I am not a parent, this new legislation is unlikely to affect me but, nevertheless, I find it a thoroughly depressing development. Why? There are two main reasons. The first is that it seems to further erode the assumption of trust upon which a healthy culture operates and the second is that it is further evidence of the mistaken belief that we can legislate risk out of life.

Our culture – and I think positive human relations in general – assumes that we are trustworthy until we show ourselves to be otherwise. This seems a crucial platform for a healthy society since without it we are left with a culture of suspicion, which inevitably corrodes social cohesion and even basic interaction. The new legislation treats every parent as a potential paedophile and it is up to them to prove that they are not through producing their CRB check. While I understand the desire to protect children and condemn those who exploit them sexually, nevertheless it seems a disproportionate response to the scale of the problem. One commentator claimed that even if it stopped one paedophile from carrying out an attack on children then the legislation would be worth it. I am not so sure: after all, at what cost?

You may think that I am over-reacting – it is just a CRB check, what is wrong with that? Better safe than sorry. However, part of the issue is that it feeds into an increasingly prevalent culture in which people are distrusted until they prove themselves not to be a risk. To create a culture where we are encouraged to see one another as potential threats seems to me very destructive of social relations. After all, what next? If I have a child who wants to visit his or her friend’s house, should I demand a CRB check of the child’s parents? This is certainly the direction in which we are heading.

My second concern about the legislation is that it seems to buy into the delusion that we can legislate risk out of life. This belief seems to underpin a gathering wave of regulation and legislation. So, for instance, when a child gets hurt playing a sport there is an immediate call for the sport to be banned. Or when someone is attacked by a dog, there is a call for all dogs to be banned, or for all dogs to be muzzled in public. In this case, the fear of a potential child sex attacker is so hysterical that every parent must be vetted to avoid this risk. But of course it won’t prevent it from happening. It is not possible to remove risk from life altogether, however hard we try. Seemingly, most sex attacks on children are carried out by relatives and trusted friends anyway – this legislation will do nothing to address this situation.

To believe that we can create a world in which no one is ever vulnerable, in which nothing bad will ever happen flies in the face of reality. Human life is fundamentally fragile; we could easily trip down the stairs and break our necks and people do. Should we ban staircases? Perhaps the more insidious dimension of believing that we can legislate risk away is that it produces a false sense of security. We believe that we have removed a risk when, in reality, we may have simply moved it elsewhere. Moreover, greater legislation brings further constrains upon personal liberty. Where will it stop?

Entering the world requires us to make ongoing acts of trust every day and to take risks each time we venture from our homes – and even when we are in them. Trust and calculated risk-taking are necessary elements in any expansive human life and the more we legislate against them, while we may protect ourselves from some threats we also erode the joy of living. Every situation becomes fraught with risk and danger rather than with opportunity and possibility, every encounter raises suspicion rather than interest and enthusiasm. I am not saying that risk cannot be reduced or that we should never take precautions against danger, only that we need to be realistic about how far we can reduce risk and that our precautions against it should be in line with the scale of the danger. Moreover, in introducing additional precautions we need to consider their broader implications in relation to the kind of culture we are creating.