Last Thursday night, Parsippany Police broke up a sweet 16 party after receiving a noise complaint.
Five officers responded to a house at around 1130pm after receiving reports of screaming and loud noises. The officers entered the house to discover a large amount of young people under 21 drinking, a few over 21, and the homeowner.
10 people under 21 were arrested and issued summonses, in addition to the homeowner who was also charged with providing alcohol to minors.
Do we really think that charging these young people with a crime will deter them? Or even more fundamentally, were they really doing something wrong? There were no reports of violence, of drunk driving, or of anything dangerous, but rather the "problem" itself was that alcohol was being consumed. And with older people and a parent present.
The only thing this accomplished was teaching the parents to not consume alcohol with their children and children not be loud when they drink. Anyone who thinks that arrests like these actually deter young people from drinking is entirely ignorant of the problems of alcohol abuse among young people and need to face the facts: Young people drink, and because of counter-productive policies that encourage underground drinking, they are drinking more excessively than they used to. If we want to break this cycle we will need to ditch the failed ideology that has created this problem and take a new outlook on how to keep young people safe with alcohol.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20090811/UPDATES01/90811025/1005/NEWS01/Police+break+up+Sweet+16+party+in+Parsippany++10+charged
Five officers responded to a house at around 1130pm after receiving reports of screaming and loud noises. The officers entered the house to discover a large amount of young people under 21 drinking, a few over 21, and the homeowner.
10 people under 21 were arrested and issued summonses, in addition to the homeowner who was also charged with providing alcohol to minors.
Do we really think that charging these young people with a crime will deter them? Or even more fundamentally, were they really doing something wrong? There were no reports of violence, of drunk driving, or of anything dangerous, but rather the "problem" itself was that alcohol was being consumed. And with older people and a parent present.
The only thing this accomplished was teaching the parents to not consume alcohol with their children and children not be loud when they drink. Anyone who thinks that arrests like these actually deter young people from drinking is entirely ignorant of the problems of alcohol abuse among young people and need to face the facts: Young people drink, and because of counter-productive policies that encourage underground drinking, they are drinking more excessively than they used to. If we want to break this cycle we will need to ditch the failed ideology that has created this problem and take a new outlook on how to keep young people safe with alcohol.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20090811/UPDATES01/90811025/1005/NEWS01/Police+break+up+Sweet+16+party+in+Parsippany++10+charged
No comments:
Post a Comment