Just Thinking

I live in New Zealand, so these comments are related to our conditions, but much of the western world is similar I think.

Government is always making new laws. The very seldom scrap old ones. So we have more and more laws all the time. And yet we find that when it comes to the police enforcing them, there are many that they now just do not bother about. This is not about bashing the police, as they have limited funds and have to set the priorities. Unfortunately that same lack of funds, pressure to balance the books along with the combination of police and traffic departments some years ago has all come together to make one of the top priorities handing out speeding tickets. I suspect that it is also a little more attractive to catch people doing no harm to anyone and get some quick income because most of these people do not carry guns or attack the police. It must be less attractive to chase after armed gangs who produce drugs and ruin many people's lives.

It occurs to me that government needs to be more responsible. They need to either fully fund the police to deal effectively with the laws as they stand or to get rid of some of the crimes off the books.

An example of a crime that the police do not wish to deal with, is vandalism. A few years ago our brick wall between our house and a shared driveway was attacked and knocked down in ten places along its length. It was obviously a deliberate act of vandalism. I had a suspicion about who did it because there had been some discussion with our neighbours about relaying the concrete driveway and we had not all agreed. One of the neighbours had even stated that they didn't like that wall. When I asked all the neighbours if they had seen anything, that neighbour replied that maybe the wind had done it. I told all this to the police who did not wish to even record the crime. It annoys them because they actually tell you they are not going to investigate it and so why have it on the books as an unsolved crime? The answer is that it shows that there are many unsolved crimes and hopefully leads to thinking about that. Of course many people are not like me and would just go away and not have the particulars written down. Perhaps they would decide to throw a brick through the neigbour's window some night. It might all end in someone burning the other's house down and someone's head getting split open. Then the police will come.

I think that the best way to stop crime or neighbourhood disputes is right at the start. You don't allow a certain amount of it and then when it gets really serious take some action. Or, if you decide that neighbourhood relationships are not police business the government should change the law. Define exactly what degree of damage you can do to the neighbour's place before the police should be called in. If $300 is OK then say so and we don't need to report that we can just do $400 back and see how that goes. But burning a house down would not be OK. Not unless it was a really small one.

If the government made a contract with the police to enforce the laws, they would have to provide adequate funding. If they don't then they are being hypocrites. They have to either supply more funds or less laws until a reasonable balance is met. We are not near that at present.

The same should be done with health services. Decide which problems the state will deal with and then do those and nothing more. Get rid of stupid waiting lists. They serve no purpose but to tell people that the government does not care about them. Well tell them directly to their faces, not by passing the buck. Say you can have a $100,000 heart-lung transplant because you smoked too much but not a $1,000 varicose vein surgery because too many people want them. Or whatever the rules are, but make them fair and known to all, and then actually do what you say.