Katy Bourne’s latest newsletter titled ‘New powers to combat drug dealers’ makes for confused reading.
In it she attempts to describe some new scheme to confiscate drug dealers’ mobile phones proudly announcing nine successes so far.
Mrs Bourne, Sussex’s Police & Crime Commissioner since 2012, fails to explain the merits of this achievement as many criminals change mobile phones several times a day, switching sim cards many times more.
Indeed one villain recounted that he knew the Police were tracking his mobile by monitoring his girlfriend’s number, and therefore had to steal a new mobile phone every time he needed to make a call.
Once, he said, he even wrapped a mobile in a jersey and placed it on the luggage rack of a departing train at Brighton so the Police could track its signal all the way to Bristol.
The only way to stamp out drug dealing once and for all is for the State to accept that its war on drugs isn’t working and follow the American lead where individual states have legalised the recreational use of marijuana.
The purpose of a State is to regulate trade between its citizens and not to act as an overzealous busybody forever seeking ways to justify its existence.
The surge in knife and gun crime is a direct response to the Police’s failure to move with the times.
There has also been a tremendous hike in domestic robberies caused by the drug trade’s turf wars.
Rather than buy drugs and sell them, it is far more profitable to locate a dealer’s home and break in, holding him and his terrified family hostage until his hiding place of drugs and money is revealed.
The robbed dealer cannot go to the Police complaining his stash has been stolen, nor can he claim off his household insurance pretending that his missing cash was earned legitimately.
Instead, seething with rage he must wait until he spies his attacker at some local druggie haunt, and then take his revenge with a gun or knife.
If, on the other hand, his trade was legal he would have able to call the Police as well as reclaim his loss from his insurance policy like everyone else can.
The only beneficiaries of this failed policy are the most ruthless criminal gangs prepared to sink to any depths to drive their competitors out by any means.
Whether or not they have their mobile phone confiscated is hardly likely to have any impact, particularly when they are changing them several times a day already.
Failing politicians pursuing failed policies only make our streets more dangerous
Failing politicians pursuing failed policies only make our streets more dangerous and initiatives as described in Mrs. Bourne’s newsletter can only be regarded as hobby policing.
It is not fair to expect hard pressed Council Tax payers to tolerate their money being wasted in this manner.
