TOM O’CONNOR SAYS . . .
It has not taken long for the fantasy balloon of reformed gangs to burst. A little over three months ago we were asked to believe the spin from a couple of public relations advisers, employed by one of New Zealand’s more prominent gangs, that they had turned over a new leaf. Senior gang leaders would now turn away from crime and concentrate on providing family support, social services and encouragement for members to look for jobs. They would however keep their name and infantile back patches. It sounded commendable and too good to be true . . . it was. While some sectors of the community almost fell over themselves welcoming these self-made social outcasts back into the fold of respectable society others were not so easily taken in.
Some gang members are no doubt genuine in their intention to move away from past unlawful and anti-social activities but escaping from the sticky web of family gang association and loyalty is probably beyond most of them. They have cited almost everything from neglected potty training to unemployment and violent home lives as reasons for joining gangs which they claim provided them with the only sense of belonging they have ever known. Countless thousands of other people have also had less than ideal childhoods, inadequate parents, neglected schooling and often brutal treatment in their formative years who have never used those negative experiences as an excuse for crime or gang membership.
Those people who almost daily face the impact of gangs on society, and have the unenviable job of cleaning up the damage they cause, have a more realistic if cynical view of those gangs which put such effort into trying to create a new public image while retaining ugly patches and equally ugly behaviour.
The inescapable reality of gangs, including the gang which employed the public relations spin doctors, can be seen in the outrageous activities which have been unfolding and escalating in the Bay of Plenty for far too long. Christchurch is also facing a similar escalation of gang activity and in both communities the reaction to these latest developments alternates between fear and anger.
Last week inter-gang disputes in the Bay of Plenty, thought to be over illegal drug markets, resulted in two men being shot and killed. A month ago a gang related property in the region was shot up leaving the building full of bullet holes and another gang property was set on fire.
In Tauranga, the scene of the latest gang confrontation, the sight of armed police wearing body amour has become all too familiar in a country which has, so far, resisted having a routinely armed police force.
The Government is pouring more resources into policing in Bay of Plenty, and other parts of the country where gangs and organised crime are prominent and there are calls for tougher penalties for crimes involving firearms. We have seen and heard all this before and still the gangs create mayhem so we have to ask have the authorities really got an answer?
While gangs have ‘thrown away the rule book of society’ we still insist that our police observe some very strict, and sometimes, self-defeating protocols when dealing with even the worst of dangerous offenders. It’s a bit like boxing to the strict rules established by the Marques of Queensbury against an opponent armed with a club and a knife. The predictable outcome can only be a bloody if honourable defeat but society demands, and is entitled to demand, a much better result than that.
Gangs are no longer a specific Maori issue, if they ever were, and the New Zealand illegal drug market has become so lucrative that international drug gangs have set up shop here and shootings were almost inevitable as they were among the American gangs fighting each other over the illegal alcohol trade of the prohibition period. American law enforcement authorities of the 1930s only got on top of that problem when they finally became as tough as the criminals they were combating. While they never actually ‘threw away the rule book’ the rules were amended to allow them to act with the swiftness and deadly force the job required.
The classic confrontation, now part of American mythical folklore, was the demise of the murdering robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow who were finally ambushed and shot by police on May 23, 1934. There was no attempt to arrest them or opportunity for them to surrender. While we are nowhere near that stage it might not be too far away and we need to give police the freedom to act decisively before we do. We also need to convince young people at school that gang membership is not an achievement but the ultimate failure from which the chances of rescue are becoming increasingly remote.