Sunday, January 04, 2009

How to clog the court system pointlessly: A lesson

I have no problems with the Police running operations to catch criminals. Or with them operating booze and drug buses and the like to catch those on our roads who are driving under the influence of substances that alter their judgement and potentially endanger the lives of others.
Fine. That's what they're there for and it is a good public service.
But when I saw on the news tonight that they had blocked off the Esplanade train station today and deployed sniffer dogs to catch kiddies going to the Summerdayze music festival who had an ecstacy tablet or two in their pocket, I was really pissed off.
It represents nothing but a waste of resources now, and a waste of resources in the future.
100 people they have charged, almost all of them for having one or two tablets (or a small amount marijuana) on them. How much fucking time do you think that is going to take up in the courts? That is a couple of weeks of pointless clogging of an already clogged system to penalize 100 people who were doing no harm to anyone except themselves.
Make no mistake, they are endangering themselves, I don't shy away from that. I'm not condoning their drug use.
What I'm saying is, it is their personal choice. One or two pills is clearly not an intent to sell and supply - they're not going to hurt anyone else. (They've even taken the train so as not to be on the roads on the way home - in fact, you've targetted exactly the wrong people if you wanted to target people who could potentially prove a danger to people later on in the day).
I've been to plenty of these festivals and there are always ambulances and paramedics on standby. Most often they're dealing with absolute drunks.
I've also never really seen any aggro at the festivals either - you rarely hear of people coming to fisti-cuffs.
For crying out loud, these people have all gathered to have a good time and listen to some tunes and hang with mates.
Take their drugs off them if you must but putting 100 people through the court system when they had enough drugs on them for what probably amounts to an evening's entertainment is a ridiculous and pointless waste of resources.
And it does nothing to stop what is at the core of the problem - the people who make and sell them!
But then perhaps it is easier to pick on teenagers and 20-somethings caged in a traino than it is to bring down a bikie gang?
Weak as piss, WA Police.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great post. I agree.
I also get annoyed with hearing about police moving on homeless people. It's like "we know you've got nowhere to go, but please don't be so obvious about it".