Children's Secretary Ed Balls unveils £400 million plan to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV surveillance
By Gabe Perna
A recent development in the United Kingdom has naysayers conjuring up images of George Orwell and his famed literary classic, 1984. Children's Secretary Ed Balls recently unveiled a £400 million plan to put problem families under 24-hour CCTV surveillance. Monitoring will take place to make sure children are attending school, eating healthy meals and going to bed on time.
The program, titled "The Family Intervention Project" is actually underway as 2,000 families have gone through them so far. The UK government wants 20,000 more to take part with each family costing approximately £5,000-20,000. The hope from the government is this move will reduce the amount of children drawn into crime. Balls wants the local authorities to fund the projects.
“This is pretty tough and non-negotiable support for families to get to the root of the problem. There should be Family Intervention Projects in every local authority area because every area has families that need support," Balls said to the UK's Daily Express.
In addition to the closed caption televisions in each of the homes, the program would also allow private security guards to stop by the homes for "check-up" purposes. Needless to say, the entire movement has troubled many who have made the logical tie to Orwell's, "1984."