Police must reset priorities as ram raids leave businesses feeling unsafe
The footage showing a plainclothes cop in Auckland posing as a window washer in an undercover operation to catch traffic offenders has left the New Zealand Police red-faced.
The overzealous tactics adopted by the police on the streets run concurrently with their slow-footed approach to cracking down on the perpetrators of the serial ram raids that have left businesses and the community at large feeling unsafe in recent weeks.
Small businesses are the backbone of the NZ economy and dairy owners, who form the segment bearing the brunt of this type of crime, are largely New Zealanders of Indian origin who toil day and night to ensure the uninterrupted supply of such basics as milk and eggs to the wider community.
North Shore MP Simon Watts amplified the frustration of the community when he exhorted the police minister to “take accountability” after thieves broke into an Auckland jewellery store this week.
The October 3 raid on the jewellery store was the third in a row on the same premises. Videos of the incident were posted on social media by members of the public.
That was only the latest of a series of such smash-and-grab raids involving juvenile offenders in stolen cars operating under the radar of the law.
The perception that the police are soft on crime is gaining ground following a spike in the number of ram raids, particularly in South Auckland.
On October 6, two car-borne teenagers smashed into a petrol station on Manakau Rd in the small hours and fled the scene in a second vehicle. The same offenders then burglarised a retail store on King St in Pukekohe an hour later.
Their vehicle was tracked by helicopter and stopped using road spikes in the Manurewa area. The two occupants of the vehicle, aged 13 and 14, were arrested.
While this drama was unfolding, another burglary was taking place at a Takanini superette around the same time.
Almost simultaneously, yet another store was broken into on Alfred St in Central Auckland.
Enquiries into all four burglaries are ongoing, police said.
The police are clearly swamped by the back-to-back incidents of burglaries. But heightened police presence and community patrols are proving blunt instruments in the face of endemic flaws in the justice system, with juvenile offenders returning to the streets before the ink has dried on the paper work after arrests are made. Unsurprisingly, prosecution rates are low.
Obviously, the police are hamstrung by the inadequacies inherent in the law.
The government is approaching the problem via its socio-economic roots by introducing the “Better Pathways” package that aims to bring more young people into the ambit of education and jobs training as a means of checking youth crime.
Police Minister Chris Hipkins has described the package as designed to prevent young offenders from reoffending. The government is counting on reform to contain youth crime on the grounds that a punitive approach would only turn youngsters into adult criminals in the long run.
As per the government's approach, all children aged under 14 years in Counties Manukau and West Auckland, implicated in ram raids, are referred to the cross-agency Social Well-being Board which intervenes with “wrap-around” support.
But is this laudable approach delivering?
Data indicates otherwise. In the year ending July 2022, police have recorded 436 ram raids, double over the previous year’s figure.
Significantly, the number of ram raids during the same 12 months five years ago, stood at 84.
This means there has been a 400 per cent increase in ram raids over five years. Alarmingly , 76 per cent of those offenders are under 18 years of age, of which 38 per cent were repeat offenders aged between 12 and 19 years.
Many of the offenders were gang members. Most were doing it for thrills, social workers in South Auckland have found.
Many of the teens caught up in the ram raid culture come from broken homes or are homeless and stuck in poverty. They lack good role models and end up as apprentices to adult criminals.
These young people appear to fit the Hobbesian description of living in a world where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
The footage showing a plainclothes cop in Auckland posing as a window washer in an undercover operation to catch traffic offenders has left the New Zealand Police red-faced.
The overzealous tactics adopted by the police on the streets run concurrently with their slow-footed approach to cracking...
The footage showing a plainclothes cop in Auckland posing as a window washer in an undercover operation to catch traffic offenders has left the New Zealand Police red-faced.
The overzealous tactics adopted by the police on the streets run concurrently with their slow-footed approach to cracking down on the perpetrators of the serial ram raids that have left businesses and the community at large feeling unsafe in recent weeks.
Small businesses are the backbone of the NZ economy and dairy owners, who form the segment bearing the brunt of this type of crime, are largely New Zealanders of Indian origin who toil day and night to ensure the uninterrupted supply of such basics as milk and eggs to the wider community.
North Shore MP Simon Watts amplified the frustration of the community when he exhorted the police minister to “take accountability” after thieves broke into an Auckland jewellery store this week.
The October 3 raid on the jewellery store was the third in a row on the same premises. Videos of the incident were posted on social media by members of the public.
That was only the latest of a series of such smash-and-grab raids involving juvenile offenders in stolen cars operating under the radar of the law.
The perception that the police are soft on crime is gaining ground following a spike in the number of ram raids, particularly in South Auckland.
On October 6, two car-borne teenagers smashed into a petrol station on Manakau Rd in the small hours and fled the scene in a second vehicle. The same offenders then burglarised a retail store on King St in Pukekohe an hour later.
Their vehicle was tracked by helicopter and stopped using road spikes in the Manurewa area. The two occupants of the vehicle, aged 13 and 14, were arrested.
While this drama was unfolding, another burglary was taking place at a Takanini superette around the same time.
Almost simultaneously, yet another store was broken into on Alfred St in Central Auckland.
Enquiries into all four burglaries are ongoing, police said.
The police are clearly swamped by the back-to-back incidents of burglaries. But heightened police presence and community patrols are proving blunt instruments in the face of endemic flaws in the justice system, with juvenile offenders returning to the streets before the ink has dried on the paper work after arrests are made. Unsurprisingly, prosecution rates are low.
Obviously, the police are hamstrung by the inadequacies inherent in the law.
The government is approaching the problem via its socio-economic roots by introducing the “Better Pathways” package that aims to bring more young people into the ambit of education and jobs training as a means of checking youth crime.
Police Minister Chris Hipkins has described the package as designed to prevent young offenders from reoffending. The government is counting on reform to contain youth crime on the grounds that a punitive approach would only turn youngsters into adult criminals in the long run.
As per the government's approach, all children aged under 14 years in Counties Manukau and West Auckland, implicated in ram raids, are referred to the cross-agency Social Well-being Board which intervenes with “wrap-around” support.
But is this laudable approach delivering?
Data indicates otherwise. In the year ending July 2022, police have recorded 436 ram raids, double over the previous year’s figure.
Significantly, the number of ram raids during the same 12 months five years ago, stood at 84.
This means there has been a 400 per cent increase in ram raids over five years. Alarmingly , 76 per cent of those offenders are under 18 years of age, of which 38 per cent were repeat offenders aged between 12 and 19 years.
Many of the offenders were gang members. Most were doing it for thrills, social workers in South Auckland have found.
Many of the teens caught up in the ram raid culture come from broken homes or are homeless and stuck in poverty. They lack good role models and end up as apprentices to adult criminals.
These young people appear to fit the Hobbesian description of living in a world where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
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