Hairdressers "are often confidantes for many people," explains Veronica Boyd-Frenkel, Nevada's "domestic violence ombudsman" ... whatever that is.
"They may hear things even someone's best friend may not hear and they might notice injuries," Ms. Boyd-Frenkel continues, explaining why the state of Nevada -- which licenses hairdressers through the Board of Cosmetology -- is now launching a series of training seminars designed to help hairdressers recognize the signs of domestic abuse, and even hopes to "integrate the training into beauty school classes" required by state law.
In addition to listening closely, the hairdressers would now be expected to watch for those telltale signs -- a bump, a bruise, a missing clump of hair -- and heaven help the husband of a woman who banged her head in a fender-bender yesterday.
"They don't necessarily have to be counselors," explains Ms. Boyd-Frenkel, soothingly, "but we're trying to help them be a referral source for these victims."
With training being provided by the state attorney general's office?
The last time I checked, bartenders used to hear a lot of complaints about marital troubles, too. Shall they now be required to take government courses on how to "snitch out" their customers to those enforcing the domestic abuse laws -- hey, maybe even the child support laws?
Domestic battery is a serious matter. Mind you, it can be just as potent a threat to the sanctity of our families when "child welfare" snoops start pre-emptively pulling children out of homes because the baby-sitter reported "unexplained bruises." I grow a bit tired of "dad" always be presumed guilty. But of course a real victim of abuse and battery should be urged to remove herself from such an environment, and then to seek legal assistance. Beating people up is a crime.
Nonetheless, one suspects Nevada's state Board of Cosmetology -- which heretofore has been nothing but an unnecessary protection racket, limiting unwelcome, lower-cost competition for the state's existing beauty salons -- is merely hunting here for another way to justify its existence.
Once we start down this road, shall we also require garage mechanics to report any sign that a car has been driven above the speed limit -- threatening to "pull their mechanics' licenses" if they don't comply?
Yes, yes, everything will be "according to their judgment."
But look at the FDIC regulations which call for bank employees to "use their judgment" in reporting to the IRS or DEA any large cash transaction which "looks suspicious." Rather than risk the appearance of complicity, the "default setting" in our banks is now to require everyone making a $5,000 cash withdrawal to "fill out the forms." Isn't it?
This latest "turn in your customer" program is modeled after one in Connecticut, we're told.
Oh, good choice. Connecticut, the only state in the union that now encourages anonymous callers to turn in their neighbors for owning firearms -- perfectly legal firearms -- whereupon the police will go to that gun-owner's home, seize the weapons, and hold them while investigating the neighbor's worries that the law-abiding gun-owner "might be dangerous." (A Bridgeport man who lives with his mother became the first victim of the new law, last fall. The weapons seized included heirlooms that had been in the family for generations.)
If Ms. Boyd-Frenkel wants to urge hair salons to put up signs with the state's domestic violence "800-number" help line, well and good. But we do not need state agencies training citizens after the model of the East German Stasi, which ended up with fully one third of the nation snitching on the other two-thirds.
Let us not forget the "well-meaning experts" who interviewed children with the aid of anatomically correct dolls, refusing to take "no" for an answer and eliciting from those reluctant children bizarre tales of animal sacrifice and sex abuse, with the result that dozens of innocent day care workers were jailed in rampant child-abuse witch hunts in this very country, not 20 years ago.
Though hardly infallible -- see above -- police psychologists and domestic violence counselors are called professionals because they've received hundreds of hours of intensive training, been subjected to rigorous examinations, and hopefully even been taught about "look-alike" symptoms which may result from little-known medical conditions, or situations in which the courts have ruled the state simply has no right to interfere with a family's privacy.
Hairdressers are fine people, but very few have had this kind of training. They should not be encouraged to assume this role, based on some ill-considered quickie "course" forced on them by a government board that holds the power to suspend their "license" to make a living.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement," is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.
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