As you may have noticed I'm a fan of letting people behave like adults - and of cost effective, sane social policy
Which is why when I saw the article here I realised that this would never make it into general policy under the current govenment.
What is it? Well, it's a way of dealing with drug addicts. It's a very simple policy. You give them what they want, under medical supervision.
Sounds daft, right? Support their evil, self destroying habbits.
But lets look at the (limited) details of the study as presented by the BBC.
Number of Heroin addicts given heroin on request: 39
Cost of scheme per user per year: Aprrox 15,000
Number of crimes commited in month before scheme: 1731
Number of crimes commited in last month of scheme: 547
Ok, lets look at this. 1731-547 = 1184 crimes "saved"
1184/39 = 30.35 crimes per user saved in the last month
So a fair approximation would be the scheme saved one crime per user per day. Which makes a degree of sense - you need a fix, you steal something to pay for it. The next day, rinse and repeat.
So over the course of a year, that's about 365 crimes saved. At a total scheme cost of 15,000 / 365 = 41 pounds per crime saved.
Now, is a crime worth 41 pounds. It would save on...
1) Police time
2) Less cases in criminal justice system
3) Less insurance claims and premiums
4) Less ordinary people suffer crime and it's affects
That would save the public money, I"m fairly sure.
Then we can factor in a few other things...
1) Less drug addicts in jail
2) Far fewer possession crimes
3) No overdoses caused by uncertain drug purity
4) Reduced cases of diseases caused by dirty needles
5) Organised crime and gangs loosing major income source
Over all, I'm fairly sure you could make a very good economic case for this. I'm certain that in the long run (hell, the short to medium term!) you would at the very least break even.
As it stands now we've failed to prevent this. These people are ALREADY addicted. Threatening them with jail isn't going to help. They are already a problem to society.
Is there any better way to deal with them?
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5 comments:
BORED NOW!!
New comment please...
The final volume of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light, was partially written by Robert Jordan before his untimely passing in 2007. Brandon Sanderson, New York Times bestselling author of the Mistborn books, was chosen by Jordan's editor ? his wife, Harriet McDougal ? to complete the final book. The scope and size of the volume was such that it could not be contained in a single book, and so The Gathering Storm is the first of three novels that will cover the outline left by Robert Jordan, chronicling Tarmon Gai'don and Rand al'Thor's final confrontation with the Dark One. This short sequence will complete the struggle against the Shadow, bringing to a close a journey begun almost twenty years ago and marking the conclusion of the Wheel of Time, the preeminent fantasy epic of our era. The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.
or in other words, "this is the ment to be the last chance to make money from the fans - split it into 3 seperate books !!!!"
Am I being too cinical?
Gave up writting sleep times?
looks like he has!
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