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Priorities

Entry 124, on 2005-02-04 at 16:59:50 (Rating 3, News)

Recently there has been increasing discontent here in New Zealand regarding the priorities of our police. Many people think they spend too much time enforcing traffic laws (presumably because they are such a good money maker, through speeding fines mainly), and not enough handling more serious crime problems.

Time magazine has published an article saying that New Zealand is soft on anti-child pornography enforcement, because a list of alleged offenders hasn't yet been acted on. A while back a Maori activist shot the New Zealand flag with a shotgun in public place, and this hasn't been investigated thoroughly yet. A woman called our emergency number because a drunken man was trying to break down her door, but police had no staff to respond. Apparently police on traffic duty don't respond to emergency calls.

This is ridiculous. Police are out there collecting fines for minor offenses while potentially serious and embarrassing problems are being ignored all around them. The police minister was interviewed on the subject and really didn't sound very reassuring, in fact he seemed to have very few clues about what was going on at all.

So I say to the police: go and do your job and stop persecuting innocent motorists for doing something that isn't really harming anyone. OK, I've got to confess something here. Yesterday I received an $80 speeding fine. Does that make me biased? You be the judge.

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