Anyone who doubts that only had to read last week about the theft of oysters from farms in the Far North. Those who are unable to resist the easy pickings offered by an oyster farm have probably been around for as long as marine farming, but Whangaroa Harbour farmers Mike and Janet Fleming talked about a degree of cheek, even perhaps a sense of entitlement, that would once have been unheard of.
In one case three thieves had continued loading some $300 worth of ill-gotten oysters on to their vehicle while the Flemings confronted them. That surely speaks of an attitude of recent origin, a lack of shame, pride and social awareness that would once have deterred potential thieves much more than the prospect of a criminal conviction and court-imposed punishment.
Many moons ago Robin Shepherd, then running Far North REAP in Kaitaia, told this newspaper that he had admonished a number of young people who he caught smashing a public telephone. They didn't understand his interest, given that he did not own the phone. They appeared to be quite genuinely perplexed, he said. Perhaps their children have inherited that attitude, and taken it to another level, allowing a thief to ply his trade while his victim remonstrates with him.
Perhaps this is the fruit of a seed planted a couple of generations ago, when it became unfashionable to scare the wits out of children by warning them of, let alone delivering, consequences, although even someone who would steal oysters while the owner watches would surely have the wit to understand that consequences would follow, as they are about to do in the Kaikohe District Court. Either these individuals were bears of no brain at all, or, more likely, they just didn't give a fat rat's derriere.
Nothing seems likely to change any time soon given the reluctance some parents still show for insisting on a proper standard of behaviour on the part of their children - those whose parents do insist on standards of behaviour are the truly advantaged ones these days, whatever their household income or the decile rating of their school - but unfortunately the judicial system is also letting us down.
Last week gave two classic examples of that, with the sentencing of a former police officer turned criminal and two men who took it upon themselves to punish a man they wrongly believed to be a paedophile by dousing him with petrol then setting him alight.
The police officer, who belatedly admitted stealing methamphetamine that was being held as evidence and selling it, was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison. He could have been jailed for life. And while life might seem harsh to some, the sentence imposed helped set a network of precedents that will inevitably be used to reduce the punishment of future offenders.
The rights and wrongs of jailing people for very long periods, if not permanently, might be argued another day, but the important things here are the setting of a precedent and imposing a penalty that serves as a deterrent. Parliament made its view of methamphetamine offending clear when it gave courts the power to impose life sentences, but the courts have not responded.
Given the potential wealth to be acquired via this most pernicious of drugs, it is hardly surprising that people continue to manufacture and supply it. It might be a different story if they knew they were risking the rest of their lives behind bars, but we are unlikely to ever know.
The sentencing of the two men whose actions cost a Christchurch man his life is even more difficult to understand. The victim took two weeks to die of his burns, and both of those responsible were sentenced to less than six years' imprisonment. We now know that between them they had acquired more than 100 criminal convictions, many of them for violent offences.
The police might have been right to charge them with manslaughter rather than murder, given an apparent lack of evidence indicating murderous intent when they poured petrol over the victim then one of them flicked a cigarette lighter, but the maximum for manslaughter is life, and one might have expected that the court's decision would have got closer to that than it did.
Those examples might be extreme, but the fact is that the courts in this country do not generally do a good job of reinforcing the message that actions will have consequences. Too much effort is spent examining why the offender should be treated leniently, a focus that is surely playing a part in stubbornly high rates of criminal offending (despite what the police stats would have us believe).
Selling methamphetamine and setting fire to people are a long way from stealing oysters, but the basic mindset probably isn't very different. We seem to have grown used to the idea that crime is no longer met with punishment - indeed District Court judges are bound by law to impose the least restrictive sentence possible on those who appear before them. They are also supposed to impose sentences that denounce the offending and will serve as a deterrent to others, but those goals and the first seem mutually exclusive.
Perhaps what we've lost is our sense of pride. Many years ago then Minister of Justice Doug Graham told this newspaper that criminals who had no money and no job, and whose time was therefore of little value, were all but impervious to lesser court-imposed punishments such as fines and periodic detention. Once those who broke the law had suffered shame, but that was no longer a factor. There was nothing the courts could do, and nothing the community seemed prepared to do, to persuade those with a criminal bent to behave themselves.
It was all very different in the younger days of the elderly folk who inspired John Haines. In those days bringing the family name into disrepute was about the worst offence anyone could commit. The urge to protect the family name was a very powerful deterrent, but now it has no currency at all.
