There have been a few news stories recently about abuse of power.
When a person breaks the law we call it crime. When a person in power breaks the law, and uses their position to try and get away with it, we call that corruption. We're really talking about the misuse of their power.
In India there is a party standing for election who promise to fight corruption within government
In Albuquerque (which for years I thought was pronounced albu-kwer-kwee), the results of a 16 month investigation have found that the Police Department abused their position routinely, that is on a regular basis.
If you check out YouTube, you will see numerous examples of police officers abusing their position, some of it quite shocking. I'd certainly be worried if it happened to me. But there are a few things to bear in mind.
Seeing things differently:
We only every get to see the extremes of human behaviour: Youtube videos of police officers going about their everyday business would be pretty boring, and just like the X Factor and Jeremy Kyle producers, uploaders want views (except Minecrafters, I have NO idea what they want. Does anybody?). So we're only going to see the best of the best or the worst of the worst.
The number of corrupt police officers is a tiny proportion of the hundreds of thousands of total police officers. I'm not saying that makes it right: it doesn't; but it does put it in perspective a little.
The majority of people will never run into trouble with police officers. Fact.
Moral dilemmas:
Here's another example of an abuse of power.
Child abuse is awful, and it causes such strong emotions in many of us. The mum, Katey, ended up in prison because she didn't protect her son.
So here's the situation: mum in prison, son now in care. My question is this: is there a better way? Could something have been done earlier to prevent Noah ever getting hurt?
It's the kind of thing Howgill Family Centre try to tackle. They recognise that there are lots of things that lead to families struggling, and they try to help those families stay together if they can.
Local news:
This week I met with Whitehaven Harbour Youth Project, where we talked about the issues that exist in the town centre. Did you know that McDonalds have a curfew? They're happy to serve you and take your money, but your not allowed to sit inside to eat, because some young person caused damage in their restaurant. Now everyone suffers because of one persons actions.
Do you know that makes me feel?
And finally..
Remember to proof read your texts guys.
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