The suggestion that people should be held
in privately run drunk tanks, when considered intoxicated, is a breathtaking
and brazen attempt to privatise the police service by the back door.
To think that a company like G4S should be
given carte blanche to roam the streets on a Saturday night to rope in anybody
they thought was drunk, incarcerate them, and then fine them, is a joke. It has
catastrophe written all over. It is as stupid as Tony Blair’s suggestion that
drunks should be marched to a cash point to withdraw money to pay fines.
As
it has been suggested these drunk tanks will be solely funded via the revenue
they raise, through the fines issued, the opportunities presented for improper,
shady and corrupt behavior, in the drive to maximise revenue, are considerable.
Especially as they will be dealing with people who may possibly be incoherent,
incapable and vulnerable.
The questions are many and varied:
Who decides if somebody is drunk? Being
drunk is not illegal. If it was, then half the middle classes would have
criminal records. If somebody is drunk and disorderly or drunk and incapable
then that person may have broken the law and it becomes a matter for the police
to deal with, not some jumped up security guard with a weekend deputy’s badge.
Will the private security guards be given
the power to arrest and detain under Pace (Police and Criminal Evidence Act),
otherwise anybody detained could be construed as being kidnapped and held against
their will.
Will the people charged with running the
operation have to have clean criminal records? If they do, that is half the
security guards in most towns excluded.
Will there be a breath test taken or blood
taken to produce empirical proof that the person is drunk?
What are the objective levels that
differentiate between somebody being considered as drunk and somebody classed
as being sober?
Who will administer these tests?
What about people who are under the
influence of other drugs, such as cocaine or crack?
How will they deal with people
demonstrating symptoms of mental illness?
Will
they just pick on easy targets rather than confront a large group of rowdy
males or an out of control hen party?
Will they have any restraints or weapons
used to incapacitate, like tasers or batons?
How will they deal with the sensitive
situation of dealing with a drunk female?
How will they verify age? To incarcerate
someone who is a minor, would require an appropriate and responsible adult to
be present.
What level of force will be allowed, to
detain people who are supposedly drunk?
As these drunk tanks will, supposedly, be
solely financed through the funds raised by fines, won’t it just be an exercise
in hitting targets to ensure jobs are safeguarded? If it’s a quiet night,
anybody will become fair game.
What right of appeal will be available?
What will happen to people who cannot pay
the fine?
What about the age old right that ‘someone
is presumed innocent until proven
guilty’?
I agree, the behavior of people, when they
have drunk too much, is often disgusting. The number of people, mainly 18-30’s,
who consider it a badge of courage to ‘get on one’ and drink to excess at
weekends is frightening. This attitude is gleefully encouraged by advertisers,
manufacturers, and celebrated by most parts of society in general. After all most
undergraduates, the supposed cream of the young generation, consider it a rite
of passage to spend three years at
university pissing most of their student loan up the wall, most Friday and
Saturday nights. We can moralise until we are blue in the face about the rights
and wrongs of being drunk in public, but as I have previously stated, being
drunk is not illegal. Being drunk and disorderly is, and then it becomes an
issue of law and order, to be dealt with by the police, in an impartial manner,
not by some money driven corporate drone, set on making his/her bonus by hitting
targets. Once you introduce the profit motive into policing, as has been seen
in the issuing of parking tickets, where tickets are issued, primarily, to
raise funds, we will be on a slippery slope that ends in a lack of respect for
the law and ultimately anarchy.
This is an ill thought out and reactionary
policy that is based in prejudice and driven by ideologue. It has the whiff of
the Puritan about it. If the current government was serious about the abuse of
drink, they would not have stalled legislation for minimum pricing of alcohol
and made manufacturers and suppliers more responsible for the effects of the
products they sell. Instead they gave in to the alcohol industry lobbyist’s,
one of which just happens to be the main political strategist for the tory
party, and big business, some of whom are major tory donors.
I
suppose the tory’s have their own revenue stream to protect and that, it seems,
is far more important than the health of the nation.
Royal
Dog Killers.
Two dogs that were used to protect Prince
William have been killed. Now that the Prince has jacked his job in and
scurried back to Kensington Palace, to live a life of leisure, the two dogs, a
Belgian shepherd and a German shepherd, one of which was relatively young, were
considered surplus to requirements and killed. I think they were shot, but I’m
not certain, as if it made any difference. The point being, that once something
or someone is no longer considered of any use to the state or monarchy, they
are just tossed on the scrapheap, considered not worthy of any care, consideration for their future. Whether they are Buckingham Palace employees
on zero hour contracts, animals or soldiers who have served their country or dogs used
to protect a lazy, self indulged and indolent elite, it doesn't matter. We are
all treated the same. Like Sh*t.
Up to 300 dogs have been killed by the
military this year alone. The price of loyalty?
Liberal
Democraps.
The Libdems have struck a bargain with the
tory’s that will allow all children, aged 5-7 yrs, to receive free school meals
in return for allowing the torys to push through the married person’s tax
allowance. Congratulations! Now middle class children can get free food while
their parents can feel even more smug and superior towards unmarried parents
who choose to live together, whilst blowing the extra money they save on school
meals and taxes, on red wine and getting drunk. Result! After all, in this age
of austerity, the most important thing is not to target meagre resources in the
right areas to relieve poverty, but to pull of self serving political stunts
for the sole purpose of harvesting votes.
Scottish
Independence. Yes or No?
“ I’d rather live naked under a stone, as a free man, than be
manacled hand and foot, in a mansion made of gold, under Tory tyranny.”
“Every-time a friend succeeds, I die a little.” (Gore Vidal).
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