Mayoral debate "burgled" by Christchurch Star

With the 'front page' publicity given to a Christchurch Mayoral candidate's house having been burgled it has brought into perspective 'acquisitive crime' and public safety. (see Christchurch Star, 11/07/07 Even mayoral candidates can't escape the burglars )

While the media focused on this one incidence of burglary, no one asked the critical questions. What is the driver behind burglary? What encourages this income-producing crime?

The core factors not being identified are alienation from rule of law (rejection of social values) and expenditures on drugs (not the drugs themselves) in a context of constrained licit earnings.

There is some irony then that Dr Megan Woods PhD (History) and education spokesperson for the Progressive Party headed by drug czar and local MP Jim Anderson is the one burgled. Jim has long been critiqued for his long held beliefs that it is the illicit drugs that cause these crimes. The issue here is not that there is empirical evidence Megan's unfortunate experience was caused by a drug taker/consumer (though likely) rather that it brings into perspective salient issues surrounding community safety and perceptions of crime.

The Christchurch Star newspaper in its front page news item and enclosed Mayoralty analysis (pretending this writer/candidate didn't exist) quoted candidate Bob Parker "There is a feeling of real insecurity, especially at night. That is not the way it used to be. The crime figures are at a reasonably high level, there are some real examples of violence and intimidation, but it is about perception".

Bob is right, it is not the way it used to be, and Megan as a student of history would likely agree. Crime data evidences that the wheels started to fall off about 40 years ago, around the date of the adoption of the Misuse of Drugs Act (1975). That is why this mayoral candidate calls for a full and unfettered engagement on civic ALL drug policy, to “spark an open and honest discussion about the criminal justice system’s inability to create the result that we all want: reducing the damage done by drugs while not creating more harm than the use of the drugs themselves.”

It is contingent upon all of us to resolve these tensions. It is the stuff of social capital.

Drug policy, covering both alcohol and the currently illicit drugs, ought to be a major component of a rational crime control strategy, and crime control ought to be one of the dominant themes in designing drug policy. But none of the slogans now dominating the drug policy debate is adequate to the complex reality linking drugs, drug policy, and predatory crime. Only if we start to think more clearly can we start to act more wisely. / Mark Kleiman, Professor of Policy Studies at
UCLA

Drug Use Among the Young Caused by Politics & Policy Failure

Drug Use Among the Young Caused by Politics & Policy Failure or another case of anthropomorphic mess, 'its the rules stupid' - mildgreens

Government attempts to persuade thousands of young people to stay away from drugs have failed and done nothing to curb the soaring popularity of illegal substances, a devastating report will warn this week.

UK: Britain's Fight Against Drugs 'A Total Failure' / by Denis Campbell, 15 Apr 2007, Observer

The study, 'An Analysis of UK Drugs Policy', has been written by two internationally respected experts, Professor Peter Reuter of Maryland University in the US and Alex Stevens, senior researcher at the European Institute of Social Services at Kent University.

Their findings are a scathing indictment of decades of education, prevention and awareness-raising campaigns intended to warn youngsters about the perils of narcotics. The three main strategies into which successive governments have ploughed tens of millions of pounds - mass media campaigns such as 'heroin screws you up' in the 1980s, initiatives in schools aimed at pupils as young as seven and targeting of vulnerable groups - have made little or no difference, it says.

'Prevention is cited as the main policy area aiming to reduce drug initiation and continued use. The policy is predicated on the assumption that prevention efforts reduce drug use, but there is as yet no clear evidence showing that prevention has had this effect in the UK,' the authors conclude.

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence recently drew similar conclusions about the usefulness of drugs prevention campaigns.