Shoplifting has become so common and brazen in New Zealand that, at times, it’s looked like out-of- control looting. People with full trolleys rushing past pointless and powerless security guards, swearing, throwing punches. Sadly, this is New Zealand today – and we could not have put up a weaker response than we have done.
The latest New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey shows a 12% increase in “theft and related offences” at retail premises between 2023 and 2024, the NZ Herald reported, and retailers lose billions each year because of it. Not to mention the health and safety risks to staff and customers or the fact that the cost of these crimes leads to higher prices.
The last government sat watching the problem grow. Rather than grab the criminals by the scruff of the neck, we grabbed the popcorn and just looked on. It encouraged crime. The crooks knew they wouldn’t be touched.
We overthought a response and became paralysed by analysis. We over-interpreted the law and spent all our time going out of our way to not touch, offend or apprehend the offenders. We spent all our time worrying we might overstep the mark and in the process we undershot it by some margin and the thugs won.
It’s tempting to say these crimes are down to the cost-of-living crisis; that people are stealing to feed their families. But retail crime isn’t just the poor seeking a feed.
My friend is a security guard at one of the country’s biggest Pak’nSaves. He’s familiar with “gangs of thieves” who belong to organised crime rings that would, at their peak, target eight supermarkets a day - that’s eight supermarkets per thief. As an organised group of thieves, they worked off a roster, so no two people were in the same supermarket at the same time. Their modus operandi involved older men wearing loose clothing and stuffing expensive cuts of meat up their shirts and into their jackets.
Retail crims have openly been flipping us the bird, but their arrogance, swagger, entitlement and lack of empathy has driven us to find a solution.
The National-led coalition government has spent the better part of the past year finding a solution and a stick to whack these people with. Now it is promising to amend the Crimes Act to give citizens more ability to arrest or detain, with the aim of tackling retail crime. Those making “citizens’ arrests” will be required to contact police for further instructions.
But you can’t accuse the government of getting bogged down in the detail – the announcement came with few details. More cops? No – and despite a target of 500 new police officers, we have fewer of them than when the coalition took office at the end of 2023.
Instead, the solution is … us. You, me and the next guy or girl -- we’ll all have the powers to make a citizen’s arrest and detain alleged offenders if we suspect something isn’t right.
Are we getting resources, training, batons and pepper spray? You know the answer to that.
Some will have no issue grabbing the ears of these idiots and sitting on them until the police arrive, but it’s a risky game and the government is sending us out on the frontline unprepared, underdone and with a naivety that could backfire on everyone.
I wonder if it’s actually state negligence to think we can all pull this off. The police tell us daily not to take matters into our own hands; they tell us to stay clear of trouble and leave the difficult stuff like arrests and detaining to them. They are informed, they know who they’re dealing with, and they have back-up - pepper spray, handcuffs, zip-lock ties – and access to Tasers and firearms if things get that serious. They have stab proof vests, experience and actual training in how to approach and nail this kind of work.
The rest of us? Not so much. So I share the concerns of Retail NZ that it’s only a matter of time before someone is killed. Then what? Is the government on the hook for compensation? And what if the citizen making the arrest gets excited and uses unjustified force?
It’s a minefield, isn’t it? And the government’s response to this is, well, the courts will decide.
I once intervened when I saw a man physically abusing and roughing up a woman who I thought may have been his daughter or partner. I quickly retreated when he charged at me, and it was soon obvious he was likely to have taken something.
He was wild at me for intervening and it got worse for her as a result. I called the police, which is the advice the cops give us every day because we know of good Samaritans dying because they tried to help. I still remember the death of father-of-three Austin Hemmings, 44, who was attacked when he went to the aid of a woman being assaulted in Mills Lane, behind Queen St in Auckland’s CBD, in September 2008. He later died from his injuries.
Destiny’s moral police force
Rather worrying is the excitement from Destiny Church’s Dear Leader, when he heard about the new powers of citizens arrest. The self-appointed Bishop Brian Tamaki went straight on to social media welcoming the new measures for ordinary citizens.
His mob hardly need to be encouraged, and they appear to interpret these new powers as coming from God and given them to rid Earth of whomever they deem morally bankrupt and sexually deviant. Good Lord, we may end up policing Bishop Brian’s citizen policing, and then what’s the point?
But we couldn’t carry on as we have been, with supermarket owners instructing security guards to watch rather than act and the police too busy to respond to crimes regarded as petty. Often, the goods taken are under $300 – but collectively that soon adds up.
We want some common sense to prevail, we want action, we want to stop shoplifters.
Of course, the best-case government response would be hundreds more well-trained police officers and staff, but our leaders aren’t investing in people and systems. Rather, they’re scaling back. You need Chinese warships on your neighbour’s doorstep to change the government’s thinking - hence our defence budget is about to get a massive increase.
As I say, I’m pretty confident only those who feel capable of undertaking a citizen’s arrest will do so; it might be they just assist a security guard with detaining someone. At least this will force the cops to show up.
A bloke I used to work for, publisher Todd Scott was so incensed witnessing a guy pinch a dozen beers from an Auckland CBD supermarket that he tackled him to the ground and sat on him while instructing the store to ring the cops for back up.
But the store said the cops won’t come. They knew this from experience. But Scott urged them to at least try. They did and the message came back, “The cops said let him go, they can’t get here.”
So, carefully, Scott got up and the big guy underneath him sauntered off. No incident, just a dozen beers stolen -- again. Scott was furious he’d put his arse on the line and the police didn’t show.
That’s going to have to change now. Police will have to ditch the thinking that the supermarket is low priority and up their game. If we’re putting our backsides on the line, we need to know the cops will be there quick smart.
National promised action on this, let’s now see if this latest scheme delivers a result – or turns to custard.
It’s far too easy to make excuses why something is too hard to do. So, although increasing the powers of citizens to make arrests is a legal minefield, that’s no reason to sit back and accept crime.
