A sneaking suspicion is crawling up my spine.
In a reaction to ram-raiding (which has now morphed into aggravated angle-grinding); to cold-blooded murders by a home detainee; to brazen trolley-filled supermarket shoplifting; to defiant silence from witnesses of child abuse deaths; New Zealanders voted for a crack down on law and order. The issue was second only to inflation on the list of the voter concerns in the run-up to the 2023 election. New Police Minister Mitchell has sent a public message to old Police Commissioner Coster - Quit with the tolerance of crime.
Since the election police visibility on our roads has ramped up. For instance, on a bypass road running between a golf course and a military facility the speed limit recently reduced from 80kmph to 50kmph. Of a morning, frequent sirens blast as police catch unaware 'speeders' as if shooting fish in a barrel.
Now we learn forty five people were arrested on New Year's Day leaving Rhythm and Vines for drinking and driving. Well actually drinking, sleeping it off and driving. The three check-point operation was run in the morning.
The age-old sensible slogan will have to be amended to 'Don't Drink, Sleep and Drive.'
OK. People with hangovers probably aren't the safest drivers behind the wheel. But then neither are people with fatigue, who chose not to sleep.
"No driver has the right to put other people's lives at risk; every person in and around your vehicle relies on you being in full control of it" says the police area commander. Quite.
But all of this smacks of window-dressing: Look at us. Look how tough we are. Look at all the resources we can summon up to catch people doing 55kmph in what was for years safely a 80kmph zone. Or to hobble the hungover.
In reality the police have much bigger, nastier fish to fry. But the temptation will always be, when pressed, to chase after low-hanging fruit.
Anyway. That's my suspicion. The demand for a 'tough on crime' approach will be executed but not in quite the way we anticipated.
And there will be no room to complain. Commissioner Coster need only reply, "You asked for it."
Let's hope I'm wrong.
In the year to November 2023 there were 347,068 crimes comprising assault, sexual assault, abduction, robbery, burglary and theft reported to police. Up 35,644 (or 10 percent) on the previous period.
Legal boundaries must always be drawn somewhere but sometimes crossing them is a minor breech.
Policing and punishing minor misdemeanors does nothing to prevent innocent people from becoming victims of serious crime.
3 comments:
Lindsay, living adjacent to the main road in the Southern Tararua District I enjoy watching the traffic flowing past home and I see it as art and entertainment.
People aren't interested in speed limits and using a smart phone while driving is a god given right. I once saw a bloke drive past home reading a paper of some sort. I live 4 doors down from the local police station.
In the last 10 days Tigerlil and i have been out and about. From Carterton in the South to Noreswood in the North and Foxton beach on one side and Porangahau on the other. Seeing a police car was the exception not the rule.
Usually this time of year police hold drink drive checkpoints with the booze bus outside home on the main road. Its usually theatre not to be missed, but this year there has been no entertainment to be had. Police have been obvious by their absence.
Sleepy hollow has lived up to its reputation.
Lindsay, I am very much afraid the horse has bolted and is over the horizon now.
"Cuddles" Coster is a nice person and wants to be nice to those committing "minor" criminal offences in an effort to turn them round before they graduate to more serious crime.
Of course, both you and I know this does not work - his forbearance is seen by the thugs as weakness.
Unfortunately, he is only part of the problem. For the past two decades, law and order has taken a kicking.
The revolving door at the courthouse where the thugs exit repeatedly with little or no penalty have a demoralising effect on Police, who understandably wonder why they bother. It is a fair amount of work preparing a file for court, and to see the crim sneer past them on his way out to create yet more mayhem is galling.
Add to that the freezing of Police funding between 2010 & 2017 which destroyed any effectiveness and a similar attitude of the last government- the effects are obvious today.
I guess to go after drinking drivers can be viewed as logical, as the penalties are fixed - it takes some convoluted legal gymnastics by a judge to avoid imposing them after conviction - and I suppose that brings some sense of achievement to a policeman who is used to seeing them walk free...
Now we learn forty five people were arrested on New Year's Day leaving Rhythm and Vines for drinking and driving. Well actually drinking, sleeping it off and driving. The three check-point operation was run in the morning.
If they were arrested, they were still over the limit. They hadn't slept it off. As you note subsequently, fatigued drivers aren't safe drivers. Fatigued, and over the limit? And 45 of them in a couple of hours? And most probably late teens / early twenties?
I think this is a good thing - keep them off the road.
I agree with the overall point re poor leadership in the police leading to a proliferation of crime (and the Oi!'s comments re the judiciary). I just don't think that arresting 45 people for drink driving is the best example to illustrate it.
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