The Dairy and Business Owners’ Group has staggered that the government’s solution to youth crime is Auckland-centric welfarism rather than consequences and restitution.
“They lost us in the first sentence when Ministers Hipkins and Sepuloni state, “Youth crime is clearly an issue right now, particularly in Auckland.” Tell that to the dairies in Hamiton and Christchurch over the weekend because this crime emergency is nationwide,” says Sunny Kaushal of the Crime prevention Group/Dairy and Business Owners’ Group.
Notably, earlier this morning Minister of Police Chris Hipkins and Minister of Social Development and Employment Carmel Sepuloni had announced measures to take action to bring down youth crime which included measures youth engagement and employment programmes being extended to thousands of more targeted youths.
“The Government is investing heavily in programmes that create opportunities for young people to break the cycle of crime,” Police Minister Chris Hipkins said.
“Punishing young people through the criminal justice system more often than not sets them up for a life of adult crime… we’re ramping up our investment in young people to create even more opportunities for them to earn and learn,” Chris Hipkins said.”
“We want to provide every young New Zealander with the chance to succeed. To do that we’ve identified youth focused programmes that are working already out in the community, and investing heavily to scale them up,” Minister Hipkins said.
Slamming the government’s over-emphasis on the well-being of young offenders Kaushal said, “What does a ‘cross agency Social Wellbeing Board to intervene with wraparound support’ look like or even mean? It is more bureaucratic gobbledygook buck-passing.
“Where are the consequences? None. Where is the restitution? Even less than none.
“This is a social welfare training programme not deterrence. Mr Hipkins is not just soft on crime he’s goose-feather soft on crime and we’d hoped for more. He makes us pine for Poto Williams as this media release makes no mention of crime victims. Just rewards for the offenders.
“We also challenge the government on claims youth crime is down. Yes, officially the stats are down but if you are a sole charge dairy owner and you catch a kid shoplifting you cannot hold them. Even if they stay still the Police are unlikely to attend for hours and hours if at all.
“We take no solace in the official stats and the government is deluded to trust them. Youth crime goes unreported because officialdom doesn’t take it seriously as this package demonstrates.
“We call on the Prime Minister to use the Christchurch Call to get social media channels to actively remove and block accounts that promote or glorify the thuggery being inflicted on law abiding small businesses. If youth are doing it for notoriety, then deny them that,” Mr Kaushal said.
WHAT DAIRY OWNERS WANT
Policing:
Treat all crimes equally. This is the broken pane approach that by stopping small crimes, early, it prevents bigger crimes later.
Social Welfare/Education:
Investigate the families of every youth offender for stability and if they are unfit parents then those offenders must be taken into state-care.
Introduce truancy officers as many youth offenders aren’t likely to be at schools as the devil makes work for idle hands.
Ensure real consequences:
Confiscate mobile devices
Require social media accounts to be closed and deleted
Require youth offenders to do community service tidying up the damage they cause
Mandate restitution such as working for free to pay off the damage they have caused and/or have damage registered as a debt against their name
Build secure residential facilities if they don’t care about other consequences.
Sentence them to working for the dairies and business they damage with a legal debt registered against their name
Boost security:
A $14 million package using the tobacco excise tax to install fog cannon and bollards in two-thirds of dairies and service stations
Bollards made a permitted right for businesses to streamline council bureaucracy
A national package for AI-based CCTV and street lighting
UK-style Police Community Support Officers to replace traffic wardens so we deter criminals not shoppers
Clarification in law of self-defence for shopkeepers and restaurateurs..