Pick up tools that build community
Opinion: When the last ‘‘mini’’ crime spree occurred I responded with a community meeting.
I was heartened by the response with an overflowing room and a lot of passion including from me.
Before the meeting and after the meeting, I was attacked both personally and against my family.
At that stage I withdrew from the community watch page as I saw it had become a vehicle for venting extreme opinions, for making threats of violence and adding nothing to the conversation about crime.
While I wear my heart on my sleeve I only deal in facts, and the facts are that there is no more crime being reported than before, this is the only valid statistic. At the meeting people were informed to report all crime and to ring about suspicious people.
In doing so if there is a shortage of police in Morrinsville then that will be noted and will make a case for me.
Secondly there were some things that the community can do to help itself.
Join the community patrol. My understanding is that the patrol did not get one new member, people were told to park their cars off the road, make a neighbourhood support group (I stand to be corrected however I don’t think anyone has formed one).
There are some fundamental drivers of crime that need to be addressed and these are nothing to do with more police.
The cliff. These take time and resources to address and they are not only a fence at the top of the cliff, but reduce the amount of people who head towards.
In the mean time I continue to do what I can, when I come home from a meeting or other late night I drive around the streets, I pop down dark alleys.
I watch what is happening in shops when I amshopping looking for shoplifters.
When I see bad driving on the road I call it in. I know there are people who find this approach distasteful and have been called a narc on many occasions.
This kind of response indicates the sad state of society where people think it is ok to rob your neighbour, to beat your partner, to tolerate the selling of methamphetamine and other drugs.
We live in a society where people openly advertise drugs for sale on Facebook, stolen goods are rife and ‘‘shoppers’’ (professional shoplifters advertise their availability).
There is no police response that can deal with this, it is up to us as individuals to report such behaviour, no matter that it can be a lengthy process, there are services like crime stopper where people can ring.
In the meantime, put away your pitchforks and torches and pick up the tools that build a community. If you don’t know what they are then are we doomed.
In our desire for consumerism and our worship of the cult of consumerism and neo-liberal ideas perhaps we are only reaping what we sow.
-Paul Cronin is a MatamataPiako district councillor for the Morrinsville ward.