Ram raids are shocking

They know what will happen if they get caught. Nothing and that’s exactly why they don’t care.

There appears to be a copy cat attitude with young criminals these day. First it was let’s go steal a car off a hard-working family. We don’t care if the owners can’t get to work in the morning or their kids can’t get to school.

We don’t care about anybody but ourselves so let’s smash into that car, take it for a joyride, crash it, loot it and leave it on the side of the road when it runs out of petrol.

Some go a step further and set them alight. They don’t care if the owners don’t have insurance. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.

They know what will happen if they get caught. Nothing and that’s exactly why they don’t care.

Some of them go yet another step, most probably because they have got away with what they are doing for so long they decide to push it further.

So they use those stolen vehicles as getaway cars after a robbery.

They don’t care that the people they are stealing from have been robbed several times in the past year. They don’t care that they have scared the bejesus out of people that have worked hard to build a business to try and make a decent living for their family.

Nope they don’t care about anybody but themselves.

For a long time stolen cars have also been used in ram raids.

However, recently ram raids are the “in thing” for criminals.

The footage on telly of three stolen cars bursting their way into a shopping centre in Auckland, hooded people pouring from the cars, running to fill bags with stolen goods, was shocking to say the least.

Shocking that so many people were involved. Shocking that a lot of planning had gone into that raid. It certainly wasn’t a spur of the moment “let’s do something bad and mad”.

First they had to get together and make the plan, select a target, make sure they had bags and, off course, steal three cars.

The other shocking thing about this is that they know they can sell their stolen goods easily.

Once again the thieves and the receivers of stolen goods don’t give a toss about anybody but themselves because as we all know even if they get caught the consequences are going to be well worth the risk and off they will go to steal another car, make another plan and make someone else’s life miserable.

What’s the solution? Tougher penalties for one thing.

Something has to be done and soon.

If this goes on our shopping centres are going to look like the ones in America. Steel roller doors covered in graffiti.

There will be no window displays because businesses won’t want to tempt thieves.

Imagine Heretaunga St and Emerson St looking like that.

Who could blame the businesses owners? No one. That’s just one of the reasons it needs to be addressed now.

New Zealand has a bad habit of putting things on the back burner until there is a “crisis”.

Think housing, poverty, the cost of living.

Let’s not wait until these young criminals force businesses to close or spend thousands protecting their premises before something is done.

Otherwise they are going to start taking bigger risks and someone is going to get hurt.