hallucinogenic mushrooms. Typically, possession of hard drugs and soft drugs for personal use is not a legitimate reason for prosecution. If the boy carried less than 5 grams of soft drugs (hash or weed) and/or a maximum of 0,5 grams of hard drugs (cocaine, speed etc.), 1 XTC pill and 5 ml GHB or less, the Dutch police could have taken it, he wouldn’t be fined. His name would be logged, but he wouldn’t get a criminal record. Decriminalization doesn’t increase drug use.
Drug use is a problem of health rather than criminal justice. I’d argue that it would be better to legalize it all and then regulate the purity of the drug’s potency. Drugs are associated with criminals, gangs and ethnic minorities in the Netherlands. A common thought of many Dutchies is to stop and wonder why a Caribbean or Moroccan- looking boy wears expensive clothing brands or drives a flashy car… we punish and search and him instead of his white friends. He’s stopped by the police.
18 June 2020, Dutch police officers use their guns 0,029 times a year on average. Some never use their weapons during their career, whereas others use them twice a year or more. They used it today. A disturbed man walked around in Eindhoven (NL) with a large knife. He allegedly threatened bypassers. A cop felt so threatened that he shot the man in the leg. The man stood on his own, on a large square. He stood still and slowly turned around after warning shots. He didn’t let go of his knife, thus shooting him was allowed. A shot in the leg can be perilous, deadly even. The officers weren’t even near a life-threatening situation at the shooting time; the distance was too big.
All anomalies, especially the mentally ill, are often seen as a dangerous source of disorder controlled by aggressive policing. Yelling a command and/or displaying weapons often escalate and destabilize encounters and cause a (mentally ill) person to flee or become more aggressive. However, it still is the standard police approach. Even alternative methods to the command-and-control practice might be problematic when encountering someone with a psychotic episode or delusion or someone who otherwise cannot understand, hear or comply with the police. How can you expect a patrol officer to make a meaningful clinical assessment of a patient in the field? How would you respond?
We can’t expect an officer who’s trained to use aggressive methods to establish their authority to turn it off as quickly. Luckily, in most places in Europe, Brittain, Canada and Australia, the standard approach is a crisis response that includes mental health workers, and police only assisting when necessary. This method works for crises, but what about other public disorders? Regarding minor violations like public drinking, public urinating, and sleeping in parks, tubes, trains or sidewalks, what should be done by the police?
Intoxication, mental illness and homelessness in themselves are not criminal. Police were always expected to provide care for the most impoverished population, primarily to reduce their impact on others. Warnings and ticketing do nothing to improve the situation of a person that is sleeping rough. Neither does banishment. This is even harder when writing about ‘offences to the moral order’. We are all aware of the horrors of international human trafficking, but criminalizing all sex work is ineffective. The “white slave” narrative is the form of a policing era that emphasized restoring morality to the cities, “which had been “polluted” by the massive influx of eastern and southern European immigrants”, writes Vitale.
–> “The culture of the police must be changed so that it is no longer obsessed to control the poor and socially marginal. That said, there is a larger truth that must be confronted. As long as the basic mission of the police remains unchanged, none of these reforms will be achievable. There is no technocratic fix.” this is the final conclusion of The End of Policing.
Community policing, more CCTV, body cameras and better training are not the right ‘fix’, it only expands the reach of the police into 