We need to make it inconvenient to commit crime
Victim of theft is not a title anyone wants to procure during their lifetime – let alone while we are all navigating a pandemic.
It’s not a badge of honour or an enjoyable yarn to have stored up for a dinner party. It’s a painful invasion of personal space, by someone who thinks they have a right to invade it.
In the past few weeks, I’ve heard about five cases of burglary or theft in the Bay – and that’s just in my smallish circle of conversation.
Most of the crime’s brazen, some of it during daylight and a lot of it’s not very fruitful – given the harm it causes.
Anything is a gain though – a laptop or a packet of cigarettes – if there isn’t much to lose.
Lacking experience in the criminal game, I suspect would-be thieves weigh up the risk of getting caught, and the likely punishment, before they commit a crime.
If neither is too concerning, they take up the challenge and create yet another victim. Maybe they see crime as a rite of passage.
But maybe it’s the level of notoriety you gain with mates?
If you don’t get caught, or it’s the first time you have been, you probably won’t come off too bad.
The odds are even better if you’re a teenager.
Of course, none of these factors is relevant to the victim or the impact the crime has on them.
The thief’s criminal rap sheet, past dodgy exploits – even level of pre-mediation – are fairly low on the list of considerations when your house has been ransacked by a stranger, or your business premises targeted multiple times.
It’s a situation pushing Bay victims to turn to their own forms of neighbourhood crime-fighting.
A friend took matters into her own hands recently when she discovered a courier package had been stolen from her front doorstep.
Her family has security cameras which captured the brazen opportunist swooping in to steal the package and running off.
She posted the footage on social media and woke up the next morning to find the contents of the package strewn across her driveway.
It seems the low life wasn’t keen on public humiliation, or a theft charge, so returned the goods relatively unscathed.
With the police overrun, it’s falling on members of the community to protect themselves and each other.
The mini-mart in the once sleepy settlement of Omokoroa has been broken into five times this year – the latest on Sunday night.
A ram-raid attack saw the store join a growing nationwide tally of businesses attacked with vehicles.
This week, Omokoroa residents took to social media to rally the troops to protect this small business and the service it provides.
“Since nothing seems to be happening to prevent these occurrences, I think we should come together as a community and take some action,” said the original post writer.
He suggested a fundraiser for security cameras, a campaign to get a police officer in Omokoroa and the best one – undercover teams setting up road spikes around the shop each night.
Recently I visited a Tauranga clothing store the morning after someone had smashed the glass front door and stolen the counter laptop.
They stole rows of designer clothes and the ageing computer the staff used to record sales, inventory, and customer details.
The burglary was an inconvenient and distressing invasion at a time when Kiwi businesses – and their staff – need it least.
All for a laptop they probably couldn’t crack the password for.
You only have to look at the Community Law website to work out why in New Zealand people are giving crime a go in tough times.
The maximum penalty for shoplifting (often a starting point in a thief’s career) is 10 years in prison but as the website states, “only people with a very long history of shoplifting are likely to get anything near the maximum sentences”.
“If it’s your first offence, the police will often simply give you a formal warning without charging you – they call these “pre-charge warnings”.
I can see how these offenders think it could be worth a go.
Better yet, in New Zealand, you can be old enough to drive a car into a shop front, but if you’re aged 14 to 17 you won’t end up confined to your house on home detention or behind bars.
Under the Sentencing Act 2002, a child or young person under 17 cannot be sentenced to prison or home detention unless they commit murder, manslaughter or a crime where the maximum penalty is 14 years in prison or more.
It may not be the best course of action either – to punish a child like an adult. But if they are free to commit adult crimes, against adults, where’s the justice for victims?
Unless we make the consequences less attractive, or at least more inconvenient than the crime, these damaging attacks are not likely to stop.