The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:
- DfE plans compulsory register of home-schooled children
- Doctor who assessed Alesha’s killer calls for psychopathic behaviour screening for children
- Newham Council social services criticised in Ofsted report
- Home Office set to place legal duty on doctors, teachers and social workers to spot signs of knife crime involvement
Researching Reform 
Screening children for psychopathic behaviour.
The question arises are psychopaths born that way or created due to external influences?
There is an article on website Psychology Today by Nancy Darling Ph.D. Psychopaths, Children & Evil. To what extent are psychopaths born & not made, that is worth reading.
I take the genetic path. I believe parents do not make their children psychopaths. I believe you are born with your own personality traits, good or bad. This view would be confirmed in this case by Dr. John Marshall, as Campbell didn’t have any childhood trauma, but the Dr. would probably have attributed bad parenting as the reason in other cases.
So if screening is done, what then? Would it be really possible to tell 100% that a child is likely to commit dreadful crimes as he/she grows up? The children when screened will not have not committed a crime & they would be stigmatised & treated differently. Could the child be diverted from future crimes? How? Therapy?
What resources would be available? Resources would most certainly be limited due to a lack of funding. After all, there is scant funding available for mental health as it is now. Funds are ring fenced for various things but are likely to be stretched further in the future.
One per cent of the general population are considered to be psychopaths. Approximately 680,000 in the UK alone. 25% of USA male prisoners in federal correction are too. However some psychopaths use their traits to get on in their careers for example 10% are found in the financial industry. 4% in business. You can be a murderer but not necessarily a psychopath as research (found on Live Science) tested 52 murderers and yet only 14 were considered psychopaths. Psychopaths are not the only ones who kill.
If children were screened how would they know how they would turn out? A paper exercise will not necessarily predict who will kill, only who may have the aptitude to do so should the circumstances present.
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