3.9.04
Irelandclick.com
PSNI criticised over drink-driving strategy
Brendan Clarke, of Community Restorative Justice, reveals his thoughts on the PSNI’s approach to road safety in Nationalist areas.
The spate of deathdriving that terrorised the community of North Belfast last weekend appears to be acceptable; acceptable that is to the PSNI.
Deathdrivers ran amok in Ardoyne on Friday and Saturday night and well into Sunday morning, unchecked and ignored by the PSNI who were present in the community while this activity jeopardised both people and property in the community.
Local people stood and watched as these deathdrivers hurtled their way for hours around the streets of Ardoyne.
We have long witnessed the refusal of the PSNI, and their predecessors in the RUC, to deal with crimes of this nature as long as it is occurring in Nationalist communities.
The PSNI and the NIO are continually espousing the merits of the new Anti-social-behavioural-orders, merits that are questionable at the very least to those of us within the community that have even the most rudimentary grasp of the concept of civil rights and liberty, yet they are barefaced in their refusal to arrest or prosecute these criminals plaguing our communities.
We have all known for years that the simple reason for this is that these individuals are groomed and cultivated by special branch to supply information on members of their own communities in return for immunity from prosecution.
It seems that these individuals are allowed to terrorise our community until they eventually kill someone.
The blame for these activities cannot be laid at the door of social deprivation, teenage angst or anything else, the fact of the matter is that their activity is allowed, condoned and even encouraged by elements within the police service that have a vested interest in the information they can buy, coerce and solicit from these disaffected individuals.
More often than not these deathdrivers are presently excluded from our communities, having exhausted every help and opportunity presented to them from the community, yet they are still at liberty to come in where they are not welcome and endanger our lives and property.
We can only wonder would this be the case in other areas that are not largely nationalist in their make up?
The formal legal system continually bandy words like law, criminality, justice and zero-tolerance but obviously they have different definitions when utilised within the nationalist community.
Through the process of Community Restorative Justice we are constantly dealing with offenders that have caused hurt and pain within their own community for years, but when we look at them in detail, they have only minor criminal records and no involvement from probation services or any such impediment on their activities.
It only adds fuel to the whole Policing debate, how are we expected to endorse a police service that is so glaringly and deliberately negligent in how it appraises what constitutes criminality within our community.
Journalist:: Staff Reporter
PSNI criticised over drink-driving strategy
Brendan Clarke, of Community Restorative Justice, reveals his thoughts on the PSNI’s approach to road safety in Nationalist areas.
The spate of deathdriving that terrorised the community of North Belfast last weekend appears to be acceptable; acceptable that is to the PSNI.
Deathdrivers ran amok in Ardoyne on Friday and Saturday night and well into Sunday morning, unchecked and ignored by the PSNI who were present in the community while this activity jeopardised both people and property in the community.
Local people stood and watched as these deathdrivers hurtled their way for hours around the streets of Ardoyne.
We have long witnessed the refusal of the PSNI, and their predecessors in the RUC, to deal with crimes of this nature as long as it is occurring in Nationalist communities.
The PSNI and the NIO are continually espousing the merits of the new Anti-social-behavioural-orders, merits that are questionable at the very least to those of us within the community that have even the most rudimentary grasp of the concept of civil rights and liberty, yet they are barefaced in their refusal to arrest or prosecute these criminals plaguing our communities.
We have all known for years that the simple reason for this is that these individuals are groomed and cultivated by special branch to supply information on members of their own communities in return for immunity from prosecution.
It seems that these individuals are allowed to terrorise our community until they eventually kill someone.
The blame for these activities cannot be laid at the door of social deprivation, teenage angst or anything else, the fact of the matter is that their activity is allowed, condoned and even encouraged by elements within the police service that have a vested interest in the information they can buy, coerce and solicit from these disaffected individuals.
More often than not these deathdrivers are presently excluded from our communities, having exhausted every help and opportunity presented to them from the community, yet they are still at liberty to come in where they are not welcome and endanger our lives and property.
We can only wonder would this be the case in other areas that are not largely nationalist in their make up?
The formal legal system continually bandy words like law, criminality, justice and zero-tolerance but obviously they have different definitions when utilised within the nationalist community.
Through the process of Community Restorative Justice we are constantly dealing with offenders that have caused hurt and pain within their own community for years, but when we look at them in detail, they have only minor criminal records and no involvement from probation services or any such impediment on their activities.
It only adds fuel to the whole Policing debate, how are we expected to endorse a police service that is so glaringly and deliberately negligent in how it appraises what constitutes criminality within our community.
Journalist:: Staff Reporter
