Hitting minor crimes with proactive policing is what’s needed to curb major crimes – Editorial

Armed police guarding crime cordons is an all-too-common occurrence. Photo / Alex Burton

Editorial

A man is stabbed in broad daylight in Birkenhead, Auckland. People walk out of supermarkets around the country with trolley-loads of food without paying. A man is shot dead while riding his motorbike in Northland. Alcohol shop owners across the motu can only watch as thieves blatantly hide booze in their bags – or in some cases down their jeans – and brazenly walk out of the store.

Some of the crime is petty, some serious but there’s no doubt crime and criminals are ruling the land and the internet.

Go to social media sites and you’ll find hundreds of videos and TikToks of people helping themselves to what they want. Some community pages even have “Thief of the Week” and plaster a picture of the culprit online. Trial by social media is hardly a deterrent.

The reaction from police, which we see all too often to major incidents, is carloads of armed officers with guns at the ready turning up.

Twenty armed officers – not Armed Offenders or Special Tactics Group cops – responding to a live, unfolding event is admirable and must give New Zealanders confidence that police have the manpower and the firepower to react.

Flowers and tributes outside the Rose Cottage Superette in Sandringham where shop worker Janek Patel in November 2022. Photo / George Block

But for shoplifting or petty public nuisance crimes, police won’t front unless there is a possibility of loss of life or limb – and then they will arrive in force.

The crime rate in New Zealand was 224 incidents per 10,000 residents in the year to September 2024, down from 237 in the previous 12 months.

Perhaps it is the measurement of crime that is under-reported because if police are not there, is it unreported?

We would get a far better overview from the Insurance Council, because they are the ones who pay out.

And what of the poor retailers? Policing is often left to shopkeepers or security guards, who have no powers to stop the pilfering.

It’s time we gave security guards and shopkeepers some flexibility to act.

The fact none of the offenders are wearing gang patches makes this situation worse, because if they committed crimes wearing gang colours, police would be there in an instant and smack them with a court appearance notice for wearing gang insignia.

Cracking down on the minor crimes would stop young criminals graduating to major crimes.

A broken window at a house in Māngere. Photo / Alex Burton

In the 1980s in New York, the mayor introduced the broken windows theory, which suggested policing methods to target minor crimes such as vandalism, loitering, public drinking, and bus and subway fare evasion, to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness.

We all want the law – which is the police and courts – to come down hard on crime.

The Broken Windows theory has had its fair share of wins and losses. However, ignoring crimes like shoplifting is sending the message that people can walk out of retail establishments with goods and get away with it, without facing consequences for their actions – unless their mug features on their local Facebook page in the “Thief of the Week” spot.