‘Time to outlaw gangs’ following prison riots, shootings
Prison riots and 1930s American prohibition era style murders and assaults are rare in New Zealand, but there are worrying signs of a potential escalation of both.
The common denominator seems to be gangs involved in the illegal drug trade.
Last week’s rebellion at Waikeria Prison, near Te Awamutu, was in fact so unusual that it caught authorities completely unprepared.
Over five nights, prisoners armed with makeshift weapons kept staff at bay and destroyed a significant part of the facility before surrendering.
Family members of inmates have claimed that complaints of inhumane conditions had been ignored leading to the riot.
This has been refuted by senior Corrections staff and former inmates, one of whom also said a more likely cause of the riot was Mongols and Comanchero gang members some of whom had recently been deported to New Zealand from Australia.
Three separate inquiries into the event will no doubt find the truth of the matter.
In the meantime, Canterbury police will carry firearms until a double shooting which left a gang leader’s son with serious injuries has been resolved.
The shooting has raised fears of a gangland style confrontation in the Canterbury criminal community.
There has been inter-gang rivalry for some time but there appears to have been an escalation in methamphetamine related violence since late 2019 including the fatal police shooting of a methamphetamine addict in Tauranga who had injured and further threatened to harm his children.
In the same week in Christchurch, a 32-year-old man was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the burglaries of at least 49 houses taking an estimated $200,000 in personal possessions to fuel a drug addiction.
In that same period a number of people, including a lawyer, were arrested and charged with various offences in a major operation which uncovered money laundering, unlawful possession of firearms and conspiring to deal in methamphetamine.
Vast fortunes in money and assets have also been seized from drug dealers in other recent operations.
The long-held view of gang members as swaggering unwashed idiots looking more infantile than dangerous, is no longer accurate.
The leaders of some gangs are now educated career criminals and one gang even employed public relations spin doctors in a futile attempt at image improvement.
Those in jail are over-adventurous schoolkids being punished for some adolescent prank and it was misleading to portray them as victims of poverty, racism or bad parenting as some have tried to do.
They are victims of their own criminal stupidity and the law makes no distinction between ethnic groups or family background.
Judges, however, can and do take family history and other matters into consideration when deciding on a sentence.
While those things may have played a role in the development of criminal behaviour they do not excuse or even adequately explain why some young people make the free choice to join a gang or knowingly commit crimes.
Thousands of other young people have not had skilled parents or supportive families and far too many were, and still are, not adequately supported or encouraged during their school years.
Some enter adulthood unemployed or unemployable, but they don’t all join gangs, deal in drugs or become criminals.
Those are deliberate personal choices and it is time to stop finding reasons to justify their unacceptable conduct . . . there are none.
Riots in prisons are complex and dangerous events with many causal factors and professional authorities must be left alone to safely return things to normality without the interference of publicity seeking politicians.
The time for them to ask questions, and there are many which need answers, is in Parliament at question time.
Prison authorities acted correctly in turning some of them away from Waikeria Prison while they dealt with the event.
As a united community we helped defeat racial discrimination in international sport, defied one of the world’s most powerful nations and rejected their nuclear-powered warships and weapons, and we are united to keep Covid-19 out of New Zealand.
We could and should use that same united determination to demand laws which outlaw all gangs unless they can prove they pose no threat to the community and don’t involve criminals. That approach was how we got rid of psychoactive substances.
There will no doubt be protests at such a suggestion from those who put individual rights of association and expression ahead of the safety of everyone else.
In simple terms, however, most of us have had a gutsful of gangs and their behaviour.
We don’t need any more surveys, investigations, research or reports.
We need, and indeed must demand, effective government action to outlaw gangs before innocent lives are lost in the cross fire and more vulnerable youngsters become victims of inhumane drug dealers.
Are we brave enough?