ARRESTING ADDICTS: WHAT'S THE POINT?

The concept of zero tolerance baffles PC Chris Adams. "What is zero
tolerance? If I see someone dropping litter and he doesn't have a
fixed address I will have to arrest him. That would take four or five
hours. If people think that's a good use of my time I'll do it
happily, but I don't think it is."

The only litter that PC Adams, a beat bobby in one of the rougher
areas of Bristol, really worries about is used needles.

We squeeze through some bushes along a well-trodden, muddy path thick
with litter. Beyond is what seems to be a reasonably neat and well
kept, small urban park. Until you look closer. PC Adams shows where
some of the trees have been pared back so that heroin users can no
longer hide beneath them.

Behind the bushes are filthy "camps", patches of muddy ground carpeted
with litter: old tins, plastic bags -- and a couple of used syringes.
This is where heroin addicts come to shoot up. "Last time I was here
there were five of them," PC Adams says. "What am I going to do?
There's only one of me, so I read them the riot act; they assure me
they are responsible with the needles." He believes that the
suggestion of setting up official "shooting galleries" is an excellent
idea.

The St Jude's area ("patron saint of lost causes", PC Adams notes)
presents a sort of negative image of normal life. The residents greet
their local bobby cheerily, many of them by name. As we walk off he
comments: "There's a warrant out for him . . . she's a user, pregnant,
on bail, boyfriend's in prison . . . last time I saw him he was in
resuscitation in Bristol Royal Infirmary, he doesn't want to talk
about it . . . he's wanted for deception . . . that's the girl who
robbed the old lady." Pale, skinny heroin addicts slip silently
between the cars and houses.

A man appears through the bushes at the side of the park. PC Adams
gets out his notebook and sketches what he is wearing. "He's a street
robber," he explains. "He robs people." Street crime is big news
nationally after it rose by 38 per cent in London in 2001-02. The
Government has made it its latest target, with Tony Blair promising to
have it "under control" by September. Avon and Somerset is one of ten
forces being monitored by the Street Crime Action Group, led by the
Prime Minister, after street robberies rose there by 77 per cent in
the past year.

Steve Pilkington, Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset, has no doubt
why: crack cocaine. "It is without doubt the most significant policing
challenge we've faced," he says. "There has been an explosion in the
crack cocaine market."

There has been around a 60 per cent increase in major crime -- murder
and attempted murder, blackmail, abduction and rape -- much of it due
to drug gangs, which has left police with little time to concentrate
on more minor offences. It has also fuelled big increases in "volume
crime" such as burglary, theft of, and from, motor vehicles, and
robbery. Funding a UKP200-a-week habit requires the theft of
UKP2,000-worth of goods.

Avon and Somerset Police have been working with Customs and
Immigration to greet planes from Jamaica and to try to intercept the
drug couriers. If they are caught and deported they can simply turn
around and try again. Prosecuting them, however, has enormous
implications for a prison system bursting at the seams.

The effort is straining an already overstretched police service. There
have been six murders or suspicious deaths in the area since March,
with at least 30 -- and sometimes as many as 80 -- officers working on
each, up to 300 officers diverted from other duties. I must have
looked surprised. "You've seen it on the telly, haven't you?"
Pilkington asks. "The old cop walks in and he's always got tweezers
and he leans down and picks up a hair and puts it under a microscope
and he goes, 'Oh, it's Fred Smith'. Great stuff."

At Bristol police station senior officers discuss the plethora of
current operations dealing with drugs and street crime: Lynx, Atrium,
Assure. They have arrested more than 500 drug dealers in the past
year. There is a muddle of different problems, from the imminent
closure for refurbishment of the station cells to the lack of parking
space for police cars and the need for some body armour for CID.
Resources and police officers are being poured into the Bristol city
area to fight street crime. "The methodology that the Prime Minister
has adopted here," Pilkington warns, "is one that may have
implications for other crime types."

Down on PC Adams's patch it all boils down to a flood of cops whom he
doesn' t know: on motorbikes, on horses, in cars. "High-profile
policing like that can be very boring because you need to be very
obvious, and being very obvious you tend to see nothing," he says.

I ask why he doesn't arrest some of the people he has been pointing
out to me. "I'm on my own, he would run away, the officer in charge of
the case isn 't at the station, there isn't any evidence, the victim
hasn't made an official complaint, it might endanger you . . . If he
had just done a street robbery I would definitely do something about
it -- I'd do my best.

"If you arrest a user," he adds, "and take what they've got off them,
they are still going to have a need for that fix and they are going to
go out and beg, borrow or steal to get more. Where does that get us?"
Prison takes good care of them, he remarks; it feeds them well. "He's
just come out of prison and he's about twice the weight he was when he
went in."

An addict who has failed to turn up for a court appearance runs away
from PC Adams when he tries to arrest him. Two mounted police gallop
down a street to pin him between them and PC Adams takes him,
protesting bitterly, to the police station where he demands to see a
doctor, refuses to give an address and lies about his name. He will
see a doctor, at public expense, and tomorrow he will go before the
magistrates, where he will be summonsed to reappear at a later date
for trial for the original crime, be freed again.

"As an individual," PC Adams says, "what can I do walking around? I
can't enforce drug law on my own. I can just try to manage, and guide
to some extent. I've got addicts coming out of my ears."