Ramraid penalties need rethink
Yet another teenager was arrested on Thursday in connection to ramraiding and burgling a number of retail stores in Auckland – a 17-year-old male who will appear in Youth Court later this month.
He joins a host of young people, some aged younger than 12, who have been caught by police ramraiding and breaking into businesses across the country. The incidents have provoked targeted business owners and associations to call for harsher penalties for young offenders, in the hope it would deter them from criminal activity.
But academics are urging the public and Government to avoid knee-jerk laws for ramraids, suggesting the approach would be counterproductive.
‘‘We have a weird faith as a society that we can control crime with law,’’ said Ronald Kramer, an Auckland criminologist. ‘‘Maybe in some cases we can, but I don’t think it works. What you’ve got is problems that emerge because of a particular context and each time we push for harder legislation, it doesn’t address the underlying context.’’
Kramer used the graffiti problem in Queensland, Australia, as an example. ‘‘The maximum penalty for graffiti is seven years’ imprisonment, but it hasn’t stopped the graffiti writers. So there’s a politicalcultural phenomenon of intensifying punishment which doesn’t stop the behaviour.’’
Academics also worry that increasing penalties and detaining young people only embeds their behaviour further. ‘‘It puts them in an environment where it ostracises them more, it can create a ‘them versus us’ mentality,’’ said Dr Katherine Doolin of Auckland University’s Faculty of Law.
Research shows young offenders will often come from backgrounds of poverty, will be in and out of education and may have high levels of neurodiversity, according to Doolin. ‘‘We need to resist that temptation to punish further and look at why they’re doing what they’re doing.’’
This perspective frustrated Dairy and Business Owner representative Sunny Kaushal who questioned the academics’ grasp of the difference between theoretical and practical. Kaushal believes the leniency from Government towards youth crime has cost business owners for 50 years.
‘‘We need to put a fence at the top, not focus on an ambulance at the bottom,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s broken window theory – they smash one window in your home, you do nothing. They smash another, still nothing. Then a third, then a fourth, then they break into your home.’’
It’s that frustration Ben Hannifin, director of Youth Justice System Development at Oranga Tamariki, understands. But in his experience, the current system of dealing with young people through family conferences can be confronting for a young offender. It’s a proven method that’s led to a ‘‘sharp decrease’’ in youth crime over the last decade.
‘‘Everybody arrested is referred to us – so if they’re dropped home after a ramraid that’s not the end of the story,’’ said Hannifin. ‘‘As we do more intensive work we will see behaviour come down – I have every confidence in that.’’