Guilty until proven innocent?

It seems that the Palm Beach County Sheriff has been allocated $1 million “for a new violence prevention unit aimed at preventing tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., from occurring on his turf.  Bradshaw plans to use the extra $1 million to launch ‘prevention intervention’ units featuring specially trained deputies, mental health professionals and caseworkers. The teams will respond to citizen phone calls to a 24-hour hotline with a knock on the door and a referral to services, if needed.”

So . . . who decides whether the ‘citizen phone calls’ are legitimate or not?  Is the Sheriffs Department about to start knocking on every door about which they receive a phone call, without investigating whether ulterior motives are involved – say, a jilted girlfriend, or a spouse going through a divorce, or someone who’s P.O.’ed at their neighbor parking his car opposite their driveway?

Furthermore, who decides what ‘mental health professionals’ will be used – and who assesses the quantity and quality of their training?  Psychiatry and psychology are notoriously unreliable, and the social sciences are no better.  Political considerations may affect who’s considered a potential target of such investigations – for example, veterans of recent foreign wars.  What steps (if any) are being taken to prevent such issues spilling over into this ‘prevention intervention’ effort?

To put it as simply as possible, I trust Big Brother about as far as I can throw him – and given his current bloated, overweight condition, that’s not very far at all!  I regard this proposal as the ‘thin edge of the wedge’ for further abuse of civil liberties and the rights of citizens.  I think it, and those advocating it, should be regarded as ‘guilty until proven innocent’.  After all, that’s how the proposal appears to regard those it intends to investigate!

Peter