Two ideas for your community

[Covergaard]

Idea number one: The Night Owls

Join together as parents of teens and create a group of easily recognized parents in uniforms which only have one task. Patrol where the youth is partying and observe what is going on.

They never interfere but stand as a group and watch. If the youth wants to talk, then they talk. If the group observes a youth too drunk to stand on his or her own feet, they call a cab for the youth, so he or she can be driven home. If they observes a youth lying on the ground, they call an ambulance so the youth can be hospialized. Such a group is in Denmark and Norway called "The night owls"

Night Owls in Denmark
Night Owls in Norway

In several towns in Denmark, members of the night owls can ride busses for free recognizing their effort to keep our youth safe while partying in town.

Idea number two: "Drugs out of the city"

All parties (Law inforcement, Schools, Shops, Owners of night clubs, bars, parents) exchange information, so youths which is known users get banned from partying in nightclubs, school parties and bars until they aggree to stop using. The reason is that fights often is started by drugged people.

Users get their pictures hung up at the entrence to school parties, bars and nightclubs so the staff can show them the door when they try to enter.

The police helps by taking them to court where they as only punishment gets a ban from entering certain areas in the city for a certain period. If they break this ban, they ends up in jail. Another controversial issue is that drug users who have a drivers licence looses it for a period regardless of they were caught driving under influence or not..

Drug users are not forced into treatment, but there is some door, who remains shut for them in life until they either can delivers clean blood samples to show that they have stopped using drug or agree to enter treatment.

This tactic has meant a decrease of more than 20 percent in small cities in Jutland (population of 30.000 or less).

Option:

We are also discussing a wild cat strategy for drug dealers. We no longer catch wild cats in order to put them to death. Instead we catch them - cutt their balls - and releases them where they were caught, because death wild cats are replaced at once by new ones within days.

It is the same with drug dealers. If you take one of the street there is a new one taking the place the next day.

What about putting them up to public shame without charging them before there is gathered evidence enough to put them away for many years?

Let posters be delivered to club ownes, bars and school with name, picture and carnumber, so everybody can report the identity of the customers.

Drug dealers won't go away regardless of how many you put behind bars, but you can limit the number of their customers by letting your child know, that you know he or her secret when he or she is seen dealing with the wrong type of persons.

Let your offspring know that they have to endure the consequences of their druguse without you supporting them but that you are prepared to support your offspring regardless of the path, which is chosen towards healing.[/url]

[Oz girl]

I think the first one is a good idea Covergaard although i dont think most adults in a non european western country would go in much for having to wear a uniform. I also think kids may not actually respond so well to adults their parents age. Perhaps this could be a voluntary thing done by young adults in their 20s (students etc)
It also seems like a good sense thing for any parent who is allowing their kid to drink in their own home to do.

[Covergaard]

Late 2006 there was 190 places in Denmark patroled by the Night Owls and more than 6600 people educated in how to function as a Night Owl.

The "uniform" consist of a wellow coat with logo and that is it. Most of the members are concerned parents who have teenagers out and party in the cities in Denmark (where the youth can buy alcohol on their own when they are 16 years of age).

The organisation is finansed by partly by inssurance companies and party by funds from tax on lottery. New departments are opening every months due to an increase in violence in some area, which of course results in parents getting worried. They want to know what is going on at distance, but still they want to know.

They are supported by our SSP co-operation (Police-School-Social services) which exist in every town and are often followed by a employee from the social services.

Each night owl is only on the street once a month or less, so it is not something which means that your life as a parent should be re-arranged. I for certain would join when my children reaches the age when they are late in town.

[Antigen]

I friend of mine was dealing dope in Philly in the mid `80's when they first started the Soviet style block monitoring program--citizens on patrol. He and his buddies got the idea to infiltrate. It worked out beautifully. Cops loved em. Neighbors loved em. Really, there weren't a lot of problems to speak of. Eventually, he had to call it off cause the local PD instituted piss testing and so all the cops switched from pot to coke and coke is an ugly enough business even if you're not dealing w/ cops as your best customers.

[Anonymous]

It really becomes clear how different USA culture is when reading posts from Europeans and other foreigners.

[Antigen]

No kidding! And Europeans never seem to grasp the concept that we aren't going awry, we just don't aspire to be more like them. It's sad, really, when you think of it. The breakup was over 200 years ago already and they're still not over it.

[Oz girl]

I would think that such a scheme is the antithesis of socialistic as it brings things back to the community and away from govt. The whole idea is to allow young people an out when they get into trouble. The whole reason why kids dont seek medical attention when some kind of mishap occus is becuae of fear that cops, parents or authorities will be called and trouble will ensue.

No kidding! And Europeans never seem to grasp the concept that we aren't going awry, we just don't aspire to be more like them. It's sad, really, when you think of it. The breakup was over 200 years ago already and they're still not over it.

I also think that refusing to make comparisons to or engagement with the rest of the world is sometimes detrimental to US. it gives other countries the  inaccuarate view that Americans are narrowminded assholes. But it also allows the US to hold stubbornly on to laws which dont work well for anyone and which many of its people dont seem to like.
Take the example of Zero Tolerance. if the US actually looked closely at europe, canada and Australia it would see that there are a lot of similarities in the behaviour of their kids. Zero tolerance has had no positive effect on the crime or drug addiction rate at all. But it seems it has scared a lot of parents. Other countries like Australia which looked to the US example and adopted it at one stage in the form of things like mandatory sentencing have been forced to abandon it because of its spectacular failure. Perhaps if the US looked at the failure of zero tolerance in other countries and made a genuine analysis of why this is so its effacy would be challenged

[nimdA]

ummm But we really are narrow minded assholes.

[Oz girl]

No

[Antigen]

You guys, what you're describing is not a new and innovative idea. We've had it here for years now. It's part and parcel of the Zero Tolerance agenda. Ours is called Citizens On Patrol. My big brother's a wheel in the Cincinnati chapter. It's propagated by Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Taskforce Training through training sessions funded in part through the Dept of Homeland Security. Betty Sembler and, I believe, GHW Bush were both on the founding board.

That's one thing I like about these old fashioned, quaint little byways out in the country. In the city, they form block monitoring programs. Here they just holler "Hey Tammy! Get control of your damned kid and git yer dawg outa my yard."

Reference the Stanford Prison experiment and what the trappings of authority and those of captivity do to average people's ethics and sensibilities. You can extrapolate where this is going.

[nimdA]

Damn it ginger.. I was hoping for a Copenhagen chapter of Straight INC before the end of the year.

You ruined it.

I remember the citzens on patrol in my grandparent's retirement community. I had the police chasing my ass around in circles more than once for riding my bicycle in the the wrong spot.

Real gangster I was.

 :lol:

there was only one time the C.o.P.s were useful in my memory. That was the time I was late for dinner and my grandma activated the "COP" alert net and I was hunted down and given a stern warning by the neighboorhood C.O.P. Goon and given a stern warning that being late for dinner can resort to cold meat and potatoes.

Can't begin to imagine what would have happened if I had been caught with drugs.

[Ursus]

Reference the Stanford Prison experiment and what the trappings of authority and those of captivity do to average people's ethics and sensibilities. You can extrapolate where this is going.

Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo:
http://www.zimbardo.com/zimbardo.html

His Prison Experiment...
The Slide Show:  http://www.prisonexp.org/

[Oz girl]

These Citizens on patrol look like a more gung ho version of nrighbourhood watch. I hope they are not allowed to carry guns!

http://www.nhwatch.asn.au/about.htm
neighbourhood watch are just neighbourhood busybodies that peer through windows. I did not get the impression that this was what Covergaard was referring to. It makes good sense to have people at public venues where drugs and alcohol are consumed who are equipped to perform basic first Aid etc where requested and required. A lot of raves in the 90s here would have young people on hand to give out water and if need be perform first aid. The St Johns voluntary ambulance corps do the same thing here and in the UK ( i think) This has nothing at all to do with amateur policing or vigilante justice in the way that Citizens on patrol or Neighbourhood watch do. I was unsure of what the second suggestion was all about

http://www.stjohn.org.au/

[Antigen]

Well yes, it always starts out on benevolent intent. But you get a bunch of people regularly involved in an organized group for the purpose of surveling and controling others and certain things happen to their minds.

Look this is stone soup. No need to organize any damned thing. It is the natural function of old spinsters and retirees to be nosey busy bodies and watch the kids. Younger siblings often play into this sophisticated mechanism as well. If that's not happening, the answer is not to make the government do it.

Just remember this golden rule. To err is human but to really foul things up requires government involvement.

[Anonymous]

Just remember this golden rule. To err is human but to really foul things up requires government involvement.

 :rofl: :nworthy: ::bwahaha::