What would you do?

I'm just home from town, and outside the supermarket, where they often have charity collections, was something a bit different.  A stall from our local police force, asking people to take part in an interactive survey.  People were given £100 in varying denominations (toy money, sadly) and asked to distribute the money between 7 boxes with different priorities on them, to show where you think the police should be spending their/our cash.

Well, I thought to myself, that's easy enough.  Until I started.  The 7 boxes were:

• Tackling Hate Crime (domestic abuse, racial, gender, dis/ability, homophobic abuse)
• Tackling Violent Crime
• Reducing Burglary
• Tackling Drug-related crime
• More visible police/PCSOs on the beat
• Combating Terrorism/Extremist attacks
• Reducing Anti-Social Behaviour

Well. How hard was that?  They're so connected. There was no "reducing speeding", "picking on innocent motorists", "paperwork", or "going for a takeaway" (our village Police Station is 5 doors from a Chinese takeaway & the officers seem to be regular customers).

I really struggled, I mean.  More visible policing will, by its nature, reduce anti-social behaviour. Tackling drug-related crime is likely to show a reduction in burglary & violent crimes.  It's things like this that make me very glad I don't have to make big strategic decision like that.  What would you do?  (argh! I sound like Jodi Picoult!)

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I asked Squeaky what she wanted to spend the money on, and she said "give it to Daddy", but apparently that's not allowed.  Shame, he'd've appreciated it!