Is it getting worse?

I've seen two fights within 50 yards of our office on Park Road in 3 days

Monday a bloke & a woman rolling around the middle of the road in Waldon Street - looked like it was because the bloke was pissed (he had a 2/3 empty bottle of Vodka with him) most worrying bit of this one was after they finished scapping the woman walked back to the pavement & continued up the road pushing a BUGGY WITH A YOUNG BABY IN IT

Then today half a dozen fighting right outside the office - this time one of them was carrying a knife, at one point two holding one bloke down while a third kicked him in the head

Is this town full of scumbags?

sadlee thee sine ov the thymez we ah livin inn yobb kulture skum bagz thee lotte ov 'em

Mr.Cowboy....I was in a car going up Park Road and seen a bit of the 2nd incident!!!!

PS....It's usually scummy smackheads fighting each other over a tenner bag....let them kill each other I say!!!! :sweet: :sweet:

I'd fence an area of the N Yorks moors off & just dump them there - scumbags

Pleased to say the Bobbies took away all involved today, not that anything will come of it like

You can bollox!

I live in North Yorks and dont want these scabby bounders chaving up the place

Put them in a boat and let if drift of to sea

If there is one thing that i hate about this town it is smack/crackheads .....horrible,dirty,thieving,burgling tvvats who have absolutely no morals whatsoever.

15 years ago there was no smackheads whatsoever in Hartlepool....why now?

Treatment?....id give them treatment.

I was thinking of an area well away from human habitation - I would be quite prepared to add guard towers with machine guns & electric fences as well, no way they would get out

Just get what we need from the Falklands and then dump them there and airdrop them a few crates of Monster Munch a month and let them get on with it!!!!

:sweet:

That would do

Yeah....cos they taste shite NOW!!!!

15 years ago there was no smackheads whatsoever in Hartlepool....why now?

/quote]

lot of big bad motha fookas made a lot of money out of everyone elses grief with heroin, which is why more rock now due to easy availability of charlie and the simple way that the rocks can be made. they go hand in hand, a high portion of rock users do heroin too, they need one to survive on the other. the road from the intial 'monging' out with heroin to addiction is longer than that with the road from the initial euphoria to addiction with crack due to the longevitiy of the high - a shorter high on crack results in the urgency for more. It is not uncommon for fully blown addicts to have a 50-70 quid a day heroin habit with double that on crack.
So now you have a lot of big bad motha fookas making a shitload from rock now.

both cheap to start on - but oh what a bastard to get off.

Tell you what Mr.G....I was eating a bag the other week and I thought exactly the same....you don't get the 'Beefy Bits' at the bottom!!!!
The bits was more beefy than an Oxo Cube!!!! :sweet:

Plus the actual crisps themselves are more 'Honeycomby' now and they don't stick to your teeth!!!!

And don't get me started on Walkers....since they've started using 'Sunseed Oil' or whatever....they are complete shite and have no flavour whatsoever!!!!

From a serious Topic about Crime to Crisps to Crack to Crisps....you can't beat The Bunker!!!!

:sweet:

Valid points - but why am I now seeing the scumbags brawling in the centre of town in the middle of the day all of a sudden? On Saturday on the way home from the match I came across an individual stoned/pissed staggering up the middle of Stockton Road, it seems to have got a LOT worse VERY quickly, or have I led a sheltered life?

You're joking, right?

That could have been quite a few people from this board on their way home from Pools!!!!

That's right, I was scratching my head! That wasn't a serious discussion, it was like reading the Daily Mail!

You're living in a false consciousness!

Let all smackheads die................discuss.

they will anyway.let the dealers have premature state induced guantanamo bay style endings.

More my criminology texts! I'm actually writing lectures at the moment on the causes of crime.

Anyway, the question: you're all living in a false consciousness and you've fell for the ruling classes tactics of dividing man against man!

I was just trying to show how 'diverse' the topics on The Bunker are and how 1 topic can change completely into another!!!!

I suspose if you had your way you'd be giving free smack out to kids at the Youth Clubs!!!!

You're a left winger yeah....come back when you've actually fought Racists and Facists on the streets!!!!

Calm down will ya! I just don't think that this was a "serious discussion". It's easy thinking of the Daily Mail generation. We're not going to kill them and we can't lock them all away (the prison population has nearly doubled in ten years). It's a serious social problem that blights lives. And if you're really interested in "action", can I suggest that you go and have this conversation with a woman I know who's son died of a heroin overdose? Tell her that her son was a scumbag and that you're glad he died. Two sides Mutley, two sides.

Improving. Sprint training helps!

As far as I'm aware there has always been a large criminal element in the town, long before soft or hard drugs became popular. My dad and grandad tell me nowt has changed really, you could never leave anything that wasn't riveted down or it would get nicked.

It seems to me like the reason crimes are committed now have changed - years ago it was because of poverty and hunger, now it is to feed habits.

When I was 16 it was fairly easy for kids to get hold of soft drugs, but even if you'd wanted to try heroin I guess you'd have had to go to Boro for it. Then there was an explosion of availability in the mid 90s and it soon took strong root in loads of towns and cities in Britain and Ireland.

My mates' mam who is a community worker told me about a woman who lives in a notorious street in the town who is known as 'Mother Theresa', as she administers the injection of drugs into kids who aren't even teenagers.

Somebody told me the price of smack had dropped significantly because of the opening up of a trade route somewhere in the world - Afghan border possibly? So if you were previously buying a tenner bag of weed, for the same price you could get something far more powerful and long lasting. Hence people brawling in the streets.

Hartlepool is no worse nor better than any other comparable town. You want to see trouble over drugs then try my locale.

Here certain parts of the city people carry guns habitually. A fight in the street is one thing but at times St Anns and the Meadows resemble the OK Corral. The other day a kid (16) was shot dead on the street because he gave someone a bag of dope which was short on weight.

Radford and the two areas I mentioned are completely no-go areas after dark and not particularly safe during the day. The kid I mentioned was shot at lunchtime. A year or two ago a girl was shot dead for no other reason than her father was a drug dealer. Shoot her father by all means but the girl was innocent.

As for the dealers. Give them a mandatory life sentence for dealing in class A drugs irrespective of amount. Not probation of a bit or gardening; life every time. It'll soon put them off. I'm all for zero tolerance.

Drugs blight this country in all walks of life and its not a poverty thing after all George Michael is not scrimping for a loaf is he? You can only deal with it by cutting of the supply or the demand. By targeting the supply chain hard you will at very least reduce the problem.

Oh, and why bother shipping them to the Falklands? We have plenty of similar islands off the coast of Scotland.

Distinctly average. More runs than previous years, but far fewer wickets. I wasn't likely to beat the previous years total of 48! Weddings got in the way really.

My simple solution to the problem of smackheads stealing to get their fix?

Legalise the stuff and supply it foc on the NHS.

As much of the stuff as they want and as strong as it can possibly be. And then double the strength.

I don't mind paying for them to od, it'll work out cheaper in the long run.

For different reason I'd agree with legalisation. It takes all the mystery and romance out of being a 'one percenter' and makes the whole thing visible and somewhat embarrassing, like visiting the GU clinic. 'Look at me, I'm so weak willed I developed an uncontrollable drug habit.'

Would any of our right honourable researchers have any figures to show whether the death penalty for trafficking in drugs in countries like Malaysia and Thailand has a significant effect?
I'm not advocating death, just wondering if deterrents work. It seems logical to me to tackle the problem at both ends.

Deterrent theory works on the basis that we avoid pain and seek out pleasure. The pain, if it is to deter, must therefore be harsher than the pleasure. However, you need to factor into the equation the chance of being caught; if the pain was certain to follow the pleasure, you'd only need a little more pain than pleasure. If there's a 50 per cent chance of being caught, then you need to double the pain etc. Bear in mind that only around 2 per cent of all committed offences, for a variety of reasons, result in a criminal conviction. To act as an effective deterrent, sentences need to be wholly disproportionate. This leads to all sorts of interesting questions such as the moral question, is it right to impose more pain than is deserved simply to deter others?

However, all this suggests that we act as rational human actors. Quite simply, we don't. If you engage in crime as a career, it's likely that you believe that you won't get caught. Most penalties therefore fail to act as a deterrent. That's the theory. The empirical evidence suggests that deterrence simply doesn't work, and given the theory, it's hardly surprising really!

Bet you all stopped reading after two lines!

You're quite right, the only difference is that if you do something 'recreationally' you're far less likely to develop a habit. If you're doing it because you feel your life is so worthless and it's better to be off your face all day you'll soon be hooked.

I know plenty of professionals who will admit to having smoked weed/popped an e/snorted coke/smoked heroin on a weekend then gone back to work on Monday and carried on accounting/practicing medicine/practicing law/policing/driving ambulances or whatever.

A lot of people still have in their heads the 80's Government campaigns of 'heroin really screws you up' - zombies living in squats up to their neck in shit etc. The truth is that hundreds of thousands of people take drugs regularly and don't really suffer any consequences other than a bad head when they wear off.

If we were a bit more educated about these things (and it seems like schools are doing more) then we would be able to differentiate between risky and not-so-risky behaviours, and vulnerable and not-so-vulnerable users.

It's a bit like alcohol - I love pint but I only get blaked in certain regulated scenarios eg on a night, mostly at weekends with other people. If I had a can with my breakfast every morning I'd be very worried.

Drugs have always been around and they always will be. The best thing to do is limit any potential damage by educating people without any hysterics (anyone remember the Leah Betts 'take an e and you'll die too' campaigns?).

I do think penalties for dealers should be more severe, but this needs to be done in tandem with community work to give the underpriveleged something else to do with their time.

So that's a no then?

Oh shit.

Daammmmmnnnnnnnn

Been there, done that and got the T-Shirt!!!!

A few years ago they tried an idea in Bristol.Registered heroin addicts who wanted to quit were given pure good quality heroin free in the hospital.The deal was that you were blood tested when you went & as long as you hadnt topped up with more you stayed on the scheme with your dose gradually reduced.It cut the crime rate by 60%.Which shows that addicts are not beyond help,its just got to be meaningful & realistic help to work.

aye, and if that was implemented full-scale, the prevelance of dealers would reduce, and therefore interaction between dealers and youths reduces, and hey presto less young people become addicted to smack. irrespective of the massive reductions in crime and welfare. but will they consider it? will they buggery.

the fellow in nottingham up there was pretty spot on with his comments as well.

Not sure if it is a deterrent but it stops them re offending...

Its a strange thing but I think you have to move out of a town to put its issues in perspective.when I lived in hpool I used to think it had a lot of problems,although you knew pretty much where to avoid. after a few years of moving round the country including london,leeds,bristol you realise that hpools issues are small potatoes. I used to arrive to work in leeds city centre at 5 in the morning,proper winter mornings bone achingly cold and I would have to step over guys sleeping in the streets and feel sorry for them.later in the day I'd be fighting them cos they were trying to nick booze from my store. some of them were nicking to order as the local dealers would give them one wrap for 2 litres of branded spirits ,some of them were just trying to get through the day. same problems as the pool really just more people to fight over it all.
whats alarming is how people just carry on regardless,stepping over people in the street casually walking by when something kicks off.
I got slagged off in the local paper about 10 years back because on xmas eve I went out and gave some of these boys I'd been battling with all year a bottle of sherry,season of goodwill and all that,figuring that they didn't have much else to look forward to over xmas.some of the locals found out and I got a load of grief for encouraging drinking!! despite the fact that I worked for one of the leading supermarket chains in the country
who rake in about 20% of their sales from alcohol.

if there wasn't a buzz no one would take them.....not justifying just saying like

in my job we are routinely subjected to drug and alcohol testing. I can only recall one person in 5 years failing.when you know you will be tested you stay well clear. I think all employers should do the same thing regular testing.

Depressing.

I dont think Bill Hicks injected smack though, nor did he live in a street/area ruined by drugs

Although I believe drinking is more of a problem in most towns, but thats legal, so its OK to smash someone in the kipper with a glass, or piss in a shop doorway, or beat the wife/kids to a pulp

And its quite cool to do 'charlie' or so its seems......., where as god forbid a smackhead being addicted, eh?

Can you PM me with the answer when you get it please.


Who is this Charlie please?

No point,all theyll do is catch out a few weekend party people,the problem junkies are all unemployed

you are so wrong.I knew a lad,worked with me for 2 years,turned out he had a smack adiction.I never knew,talked to him every day he was earning 12k.now where was his money coming from? he survived by the way talked to him last week. but please don't believe that all smackheads look like keef richards.

A very close friend of mine is a drugs counsellor, actually a relapse prevention expert. One of his clients is a barrister.