Too many drunks in custody

Image via Wikipedia

''We have to make judgement call on a person's behaviour and the likelihood that they will commit an offence.

''Our officers have to consider not only that person's safety but the safety of the whole community.''

If people do not want to be locked up for being drunk and hard to get along with...then don't blame the police and don't put the burden on the police. I am glad the Acting Chief Police Officer had the courage to respond reasonably to the criticisms. Interesting when we have had news of drunken teenagers vandalising and terrorising their neighbourhoods and then we have had other groups go out of control , so many who are picked up for drunk driving and speeding with excessive blood alcohol levels and who put others at risk and spoil a venue or venue for others. It has nothing to do with being a wowser.It has to do with boundaries and the fact we are reluctant to put them in. People often don't have a sense of reasonable behaviour .Some drunks can be quite reasonable and not very difficult but we are increasingly getting aggressive drunken behaviour. Yes, we could use other people and we could spend hours with the drunk...better to put them away and let them get over it and then work with them. We do know we have increasing alcohol consumption and we do know that we have been trying to deal with this. I think we have had enough of unruliness and the police are the ones who get called out. If someone else wants to deal with a group of drunks they would be welcome help. We have to resolve the drinking behaviour but in the meantime we have to deal with it quickly because it is taking us over and the police have a lot of other things to do.