Last Sunday morning we woke to find David's car had been broken into, along with five others in the street. This is our third experience of vehicle break-ins/theft/vandalism since we have lived in what is a dead-end street. It's bloody annoying having the car out of commission for a week while glass is ordered in. The local cop came but little can be done, as we have come to expect. Anyway the episode hadn't prompted me to write a blog post until today.
One week later I am running Robert out early to Plimmerton in my car. Along the Esplanade in Petone, which has a 50km speed limit even at the industrial end, a cop is pointing his speed gun thingy at traffic and offending cars were being pulled up and ticketed by another three cops about 100 metres on. I wasn't stopped but my blood started boiling as I considered that 4 cops were being paid to harass citizens out and about on a quiet Sunday morning doing nothing more 'criminal' than going a few kilometres over a speed limit which is already too low.
Now I am a simple person. But it strikes me that these taxpayer-funded agents of the state could be far better utilised patrolling the streets in the small hours of the morning attempting to detect but more importantly, DETER, real criminals. Or are they too afraid to do some real policing?
7 comments:
Why? Because real policing costs money. Traffic cops make money.
As I'm sure you know already Lindsay. :-)
No wonder the police have lost the respect the public once had for them and it's not the fault of the average cops, is it?
Their 'managers' need a good kick in the backside and telling to get on with their primary role--that of protecting citizens, not harassing them.
But it's not like the four revenue gatherers are in addition to an adequate number of police doing night time patrols. They seem to be instead of.
All DAY I see cops driving up and down patrolling SH2 and making money for Uncle Hullen.
At night when the drunks and hoons are blatting about causing some REAL problems- not a cop to be seen...
You got that right. But you know you shouldn't get mad. Get even. That's my philosophy. If you cop a fine make sure that Cullen gets at least three times the amount less in tax. Now I will leave it to you imagination as to how but it ain't hard.
Until we depoliticise the Head
quarters and set better BONUS TARGETS FOR THE BOSSES AND REMOVE THE BENT COPS AT THE TOP we will not change the culture. Lots of good cops and if you ask those that leave they will all tell you two things.
1. Loved my job and would do it all again.
2. Leaving because we can't stand the management.
Sound familiar. Heard it dozens of times.
Dear Lindsay.
You are stuck in an old paradigm. You still hold the quant and antiquated idea the police should serve a "peace officers" acting to keep the peace between people and protect individuals from crime. It had it's place, a long time ago.
Today they are "law enforcement" officers. There job is to protect the state more than to protect you. They are there to raise funds for the state by acting as one of the several extortion arms government has established. And they are there to make sure that you don't act in any way which threatens the state or disrespects its authority.
Yes, petty thugs breaking car windows are an annoyance. But they do not post the treat that comes where the middle classes stop obeying government edict. The petty criminals threaten you. A middle class that begins to disobey the law threatens the government. And so the police, as the bodyguard of Big Brother are there to make sure that you, and others like, the dangerous, decent people fo New Zealand, learn to obey.
Dear Anon,
With your permission I'll take off where you stopped.
In the whole wide world it's just a few families who pull the strings. They are all bankers. They fund wars, because they know the governments can make their citizens pay.
Law enforcement in this context means "keeping things the way they are", because that's the way to make money, on the scale that matters.
It's not about the rich and poor you see in the streets. It's not about mediocre politics. It's about who is pulling the strings way above that.
I make a point of flashing my lights to oncoming cars whenever I see these bastards on the pinch....I figure I must have deprived them of many thousands by now..
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