One thing my limited knowledge of drug crime & its devastating effects on both the economy & the millions of victims has taught me is that the last 40 years of the war on drugs has not worked & there is nothing I have seen in any government policy or legislation which leads me to believe any change is imminent.

I have long been a proposer of radical thinking on anti-drugs policy, so it is with interest that I saw Mark Easton, of the BBC’s piece on Portugal’s response to fighting the menace of drugs.

Portugal hasn’t legalised drugs, though this is what the headlines might show; they have de-criminalised the personal use of drugs.

On 1st July 2001 Portugal announced that the purchase, possession & use of any previously illegal substances would no longer be viewed as a criminal offense.

Health & social workers can now assist users to use ‘clean’ drugs paraphernalia & guide users on police-free drug rehabilitation programmes.

HIV infections & drug related deaths have fallen dramatically.

One of the  biggest objections to the legalisation of drugs is that it would open the floodgates to everyone who previously were desperate to take drugs but were only stopped for fear of breaking the law. It’s interesting to note that Portugal’s eight-year experience does not bear this out. Figures suggest there to have been a fall in drugs use of 10% across the country. Use by school-age children shows some dramatic falls; approximately 25% fall un use of cannabis & 50% fall in the use of ecstasy, cocaine & amphetamines. The use of heroin & LSD is also down.

Whatever the figures there is no evidence that any use of illegal substances has risen as a result of the relaxing of the law in Portugal. The truth is that some people will take drugs whether it is illegal or not & most people would not take drugs even if you stood on street corners handing it out free.

Drug trafficking remains a serious offence in Portugal but those caught with drugs for personal use are sent to a local drugs dissuasion commission panel which encourages drugs education & treatment.

Since Portugal changed its policy 10 other EU countries have de-criminalised the possession of some if not all illegal substances.

Here in Britain we seem to have a policy which is not clear in its purpose & is a hybrid of mixed messages; possession of drugs is still a criminal offence. Cannabis possession has just been put back into a more serious category after the government experiment to move it from class B to C was deemed an error, yet 80% of people caught with an illegal substance are given a caution or a warning & less than 1% (about 1,000 people a year) are sent to prison.

With so many of the government’s policies, it seems the bark is worse than the bite which leads to a wishy-washy approach which looks good in the soundbites but actually does absolutely nothing to address the issue.

BLUtube is powered by PoliceOne.com

A lot of complaints are about the police refusing to deal with somebody’s problem. Often, there are good reasons for this, mostly it’s because the cause for the call is “not a police matter”.

A popular call we receive is about noisy neighbours. This is usually a complaint that someone can’t get to sleep because of loud music or their Sunday afternoon peace is beinb shattered due to an inconsiderate neighbour’s power-tools.

Some years ago the government decided it was a good idea to remove what were previously part of the police’s responsibilities to other agencies. We had PCSOs to take on low-level anti-social behaviour. The Highways Agency took on some of the responsibilities on the mitorways & fast roads network. Local parking issues were transferred to the local authorities and noise nuisance problems were given to environmental health departments to sort out.

The idea with noise was that an Environmental Health Officer from the council could attend a noisy party, issue a noise abatement order & sieze equipment from those who declined to turn down the noise. All well & good in theory. Except the councils were expected to fund this extra work from existing budgets. In most councils there is more chance of seeing Lord Lucan riding Shergar down the High Street than seeing  an EHO after 6pm.

This is the cause for much ire & frustration amongst the local populace. So we take a lot of calls which are complaints against police. Mr Jacobs phoned up today to make an official complaint because police wouldn’t stop his neighbour playing loud music. He was advised to contact the local environmental health department whose responsibility it is to deal with noise issues. The fact that the local council, for whatever reason, only provide an out of hours service during the summer months on a Friday & Saturday nights is immaterial to Mr Jacobs, who says it is the police at fault & wants to speak to an Inspector about the issue.

Doubtless the inspector will apologise but repeat what Mr Jacobs has already been told by several different people. It may or may not be recorded as an official complaint against police. Whilst you can understand his frustration it’s a little bit like ringing Tescos to complain that they are refusing to service your car.

The Telegraph & other sources are reporting a cock-up on the money-producing front which might see thousands of us with a little bit of a cash bonus.

The new 20p piece’s design changed a little while ago & in so doing the Royal Mint made a bit of a fopar.

The design change put a fragmented image of the Royal coat of arms on the tails side & a new portrait of the queen on the heads side. In order to accommodate the new design the date was moved from the heads side to the tails. The problem was that a batch of between 50,000 & 200,000 20p pieces were minted with the old front & the new back which missed off the date completely.

Numismatists (I had no idea either) said the last time the Royal Mint left a date off a coin was 1672.

These coins are set to become collectors’ pieces & a company is already offering £50 a pop. One site predicts the coins may be worth up to £250 each in ten years time. One site reports that in 1983 the Royal Mint issued a two-pence coin which said “New Pence” instead of “Two Pence” which now sell for up to £200 each.

I’m off to check the whisky bottle with all our loose change in it.

That was up until last week when Deputy High Court judge John Howell released him from detention - on bail - because the Home Office are taking too long to remove him from the UK. The judge said ‘There is plainly the risk of him reoffending, but the type of offence he may commit is not in my judgment of the most grave kind, though serious they undoubtedly are.‘

The judge accepted that there was a risk that Daq would commit further offences if he was freed.

I don’t know who is worse in this case; the government for taking so long to kick an undesirable out of the country, or the judge for putting the rights of a violent offender above the rights of his next victim.

Darren Yates, a civilian recruitment manager with West Midlands Police, is said to have described a Muslim PC as looking like Osama Bin Laden and a “prat” in Islamic dress.

An industrial tribunal heard that the manager said the officer looked like a terrorist because of his beard.
PC Tariq Dost was awarded £11,000 at the tribunal when it agreed he had been subjected to racial and religious discrimination.

Two things strike me about this case;
Firstly - and anyone who has been reading this blog for any time will know what I think of the compensation culture - if someone made a remark about me which I didn’t like, I’m not sure I would be looking to the law to address the matter. I might  be seeking thousands of pounds if they’d injured me, but hurting my feelings?

But secondly, what the fuck was a recruitment manager doing making  such non-PC remarks to someone else at work? I’d have thought that of anyone, someone involved in any recruitment department let alone a police recruiting manager would be up-to-speed with current policies & expectations. Whether you agree with the policies or not surely you’ve got to be pretty stupid to say something like that in the current climate?

The murder of Constable Darrell Lunsford of the Nacogdoches County Constable’s Office was captured on his dashboard cam in 1991.

BLUtube is powered by PoliceOne.com

You can see Constable Lunsford’s memorial at the Officer Down Memorial Page website

His claim to fame in the annals of Britain’s Dumbest Criminals was to sneak into a church  in Scotland during a service & steal the collection money from the vestry while the congregation were singing hymns.

Police attended when the crime had been discovered (pretty amazing in itself that they managed to get there so soon after the report, maybe things are different in Scotland). All police had to do was follow a trail of dropped coins & ripped open gift envelopes from the church to a nearby park where Brown was sitting with the spoils of his crime.

He was jailed for four months for theft of £296, some of which had already been spent on drugs by the time police arrived.

The government’s answer to everything is to legislate, so how come there aren’t any really useful laws, ones that prevent you from toiling while everyone else is out there sunning themselves & sipping ice cool drinks whilst dressed in shorts & skimpy tops? (Don’t have a mental picture of me in a skimpy top, by the way, lest I end up being sued for your resultant illness).

The control room is like working in some underground nuclear bunker. Once you’re in there with your head down & your microphone switched on a glacier of monumental propertions could wend it’s way past the control room windows being chased by the fires of hell & you’d be none the wiser. The only clue you have to what the weather is doing outside might be whatever you can see on CCTV, if it happens to be live on one of the screens.

When I returned to work they all asked me if I was going to do reduced hours. I decided against it on the grounds of wanting to get a good burst of bank balance injections.

On days like we’re having at the moment, I’m seriously beginning to doubt my judgement.

]]> http://200weeks.police999.com/archives/1688/feed http://200weeks.police999.com/archives/1686 http://200weeks.police999.com/archives/1686#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:07:43 +0000 200 http://200weeks.police999.com/?p=1686 I was going to mention this last week before all the furore over the Times & their wonderful bit of investigative journalism on Nightjack, so it’s a few days late.

Police got called to a kebab house where someone complained of being raqcially abused by some drunk thug. Two officers attended & asked to speak with the male outside. Once in the street, the thug started shouting & swearing, his wife made a gesture at him which resulted in the officers trying to restrain the male from assaulting his own wife. The male PC was punched in the face, the female PC tried to intervene & was also punched in the face resulting in 4 stitches down the front of her face which has left a permanent scar.

This is what happens up & down the land every weekend. Sometimes the officers come off ininjured, sometimes they come off much worse, but they are assaulted every day, and have been for years.

The above case happened in May in Bristol. PC Gemma Mags had a month off work, recovering from her injuries. The defendant was convicted of both assaults at Bristol magistrates Court on June 16th. He received an 18-week prison sentence, 80 hours community service & has to pay the officer £500 compensation.

I don’t suppose things have changed too much, the last two people to be have to pay me compensation never paid. I got the first £5 instalment from one & bugger all from the other. Despite making enquiries with the courts over the next 3 years not a penny more appeared.

The 18-week jail sentence was suspended, so it’s a paper-only conviction & completely meaningless.

So that leaves the community service. If he completes the full 80 hours, I’m a banana.

Proof, if proof were needed that the courts of the land really do protect the people who are charged with dealing with all of society’s drunken thugs.