ABSTRACT
Much of the policy debate on risk management relies on the formula that the ‘experts’ will tell you what the real dangers are and how to reduce them. Frequently, the experts’ messages give reassurance that anxieties are ill-founded. Practical advice on risk reduction tends to require changes in the behaviour of potential victims, rather than in those who produce the risk. Nowhere is this more the case than in the field of child safety. Children must be taught to shout ‘No’ and run from danger; they must be taught never to cross a road if a car is coming and never to cross between parked cars; they must be taught of stranger danger, and danger in the home.
