Graham Bell: Ram raids are violent, thuggish and dangerous

Retired Detective Inspector Graham Bell. Photo / NZME

OPINION

When I hear some of the excuses put forward on behalf of the people carrying out these ram raids I am inclined to become frustrated and a little angry.

So am I just another grumpy old man, or am I someone who has the benefit of a great deal of life experience to call upon?

I like to think I'm mostly the latter but I will concede that there are times when I probably meet the first definition as well.

Many people in my demographic would, I am confident, regard themselves in much the
same way.

But don't make the same mistake as a lot of other people in New Zealand do and
disregard us as "dinosaurs".

We can see and understand what's going on.

We don't need alI the empty excuses and understandable reasons that seek to minimise this burgeoning and dangerous trend in criminal offending.

We can see the outcomes of bad or poor parenting for ourselves.

We can see the impact on society arising from generations of people growing up in a system where nobody is made to face consequences for wrongdoing until it is too late.

We can see the impact of young people trying to outdo one another with outrageous behaviour which they circulate with glee on social media.

We can see successive generations of people repeating bad behaviours in front of their children.

We can see too many young people becoming parents, often unintentionally, when they are certainly not equipped or ready to.

We can see the inept responses from successive governments manipulating statistics to give erroneous pictures.

We have seen prisons become nearly as difficult to get into as the All Blacks.

Criminals need substantial lists of convictions to be sent there.

We also see the outcomes of these issues and a raft of others that contribute to the sad state of affairs that exists today.

All of this also leaves us where we all wonder how on earth a bunch of 7- to 14-year-old children can be out at 2am committing such heinous crimes when really we need only reflect on all the issues I have just outlined.

Surely, in a civilised society, children of this age must, or should, be exactly where their parents think they are.

In any event, where on earth do they think they are?

Do they even care?

When these kids have abandoned their stolen cars, do they go home?

When they get there, what do they do with the property they have been stealing and why aren't they quizzed about it by the parents?

I think the answers to most of these questions are reasonably apparent.

So why aren't the apologists and explanation-makers seeing to it that this sort of thing is stopped and prevented from continuing as soon as possible? The answer to that appears to be that they are usually pursuing some other agenda of their own.

Another factor in our contemporary crime scene has been the way society has developed in the modern era.

Many of us will recall growing up in a family home that was never locked and never stolen from.

My own parents would take the family away from Hamilton for holidays in Raglan or Mount Maunganui and leave our house unlocked for three weeks at a time.

The same applied to the families of my aunts and uncles.

But in looking back with those rose-tinted glasses we also need to remember that there was little worth stealing in those houses.

Furniture and appliances were huge and unwieldy.

There were no small electronic devices and few other valuables.

Only wealthy people had expensive jewellery in any quantity and cash was short and tightly held.

Burglaries would more often than not be aimed at shops and business premises.

The late 1960s and '70s saw the advent of the drug problem in earnest. Many criminals turned to that as more lucrative than burglaries.

Armed robberies were reasonably rare until the '80s and '90s.

But through this period we also saw Walkmans and computers become commonplace followed by laptops, flat-screen TVs, videos, cellphones, tablets, and stereo equipment and camera gear finding their way into every home.

Burglaries burgeoned again and ram raids are just another branch of that.

Make no mistake, ram raids are violent, thuggish and dangerous.

In some ways, this is what makes it attractive to these groups of marauding and unrestrained youths looking for excitement first and money second.

If they continue, people will inevitably be injured or killed.

But when that happens don't try and blame anybody other than the offenders.

Especially not us grumpy old men and women or those of us with extensive life experience.

We have been sounding the warnings for years.

- Graham Bell is a retired police detective inspector in charge of criminal investigations in the Bay of Plenty, and former host of TVNZ's crime show Police Ten 7.