Been Caught Stealing?
Citizen's Arrests and Criminal Costs.
I've been caught stealin', once when I was 5
I enjoy stealin', it's just as simple as that
Oh well, it's just a simple fact
When I want something, man, I don't wanna pay for it
Writers: David Navarro, Eric Avery, Perry Farrell, Stephen Perkins.
How much would you pay to change the law to whatever you want it to be? Probably quite a bit, depending on the size of your scruples. Right?
Now, what if I told you that not only could you get the government to change the law to something that a lot of people think is a really bad idea, and not only would it cost you nothing - but you’d get paid the best part of a grand a day for the privilege.
Sounds too good to be true, right?
Some of you will remember our old friend Sunny Kaushal, the Dairy and Business Owners Group Inc chairman, who spent the last election campaigning hard for National.
Here are some images to jog your memory. Sunny is the one who isn’t Christopher Luxon but would very much like to be.
Kaushal was very busy - advocating for a reduction in Smokefree restrictions - check, bad-mouthing Labour with National Party disinformation about them being soft on crime, and, it turns out, planning to unleash an army of angry shopkeepers on the unsuspecting shoplifters of Aotearoa.
Please note that despite the sentiments in that last sentence or the lyrics quoted at the start of this newsletter, I’m certainly no fan of thieves—and neither is the Labour Party. However, unlike Sunny, I think such an initiative is dangerous and will create more problems than it solves.
Concerned that their elevation to government hadn’t magically cured crime or changed it in any perceptible way that didn’t require looking at the numbers while squinting at an upside-down piece of paper in the dark, National did the next best thing to actually doing something, and set up a Ministerial Advisory Group.
In fairness to our governing party, they’ve learned that when rehashing failed, reheated policies from the past, it’s good to have “independent” advice to support their decisions.
The group cost $3.6m, a mere drop in the bucket compared with the cost reductions being achieved elsewhere, and they appointed; I’m sure you guessed it - Sunny Kaushal to be the chair, for which they paid him $920 daily.
Some might consider paying an industry lobbyist with close ties to the governing party to recommend law changes to be inappropriate. I would say to those people, "Haven’t you been watching?” It’s pretty standard these days.
Tina commented, “$920 a day to lobby for National votes, and has this government stopped ram raids..no one got what they wanted apart from this coalition and this scoundrel. People grizzle about tax dollars for kids’ lunches but are happy to pay this crook thousands for SFA?”
James said, “Those are not comparable things, you fucking idiot”, because this was Twitter. Thanks, James. 🙂 You seem nice.
Labour’s spokesperson Ginny Andersen said, “Instead of focusing on real solutions, the government has wasted millions on an advisory group that took several months to release a report. These are millions of dollars that could have gone to resourcing frontline police.”
Meanwhile, over at the government…
As things stand, under current legislation, a citizen cannot make an arrest outside the hours of 9 p.m.- 6 a.m. unless the stolen goods are worth at least $1000.
Yesterday, Justice Minister Paul GoldSmith and Assoc. Minister Nicole “Guns 4 All” McKee announced plans to change our Crimes Act so that citizens could intervene in any crime at any time.
Specifically, Sunny’s group asked for the following, which will go through a select committee once Goldsmith has introduced the legislation:
Amending the Crimes Act so that citizens can intervene to stop any Crimes Act offence, at any time of the day.
Requiring that a person making an arrest contact police and follow police instructions.
Clarifying that restraints can be used, when reasonable, when making an arrest.
Changing the defence of property provisions to the Crimes Act so it is clear that reasonable force may be used.
So, citizens making these arrests can use “restraints” and “reasonable force.” When you consider the average dairy owner and the typical crooks doing dairies over or ram-raiding shops, that seems quite brave—some might say foolhardy. I think I’ll settle for somewhat ambitious, and I wasn’t the only one concerned.
Who Said What?
Richard Wagstaff, president of the CTU, said:
“Setting the expectation that workers on the shop floor will be required to prevent shoplifting and retail crime will only increase the risk of violence and undermines workers’ right to a safe and healthy workplace.
There are serious employment and criminal law concerns for workers and the public by putting workers in harm’s way to save their boss a few bucks. Crime-fighting is not within the scope of retail workers’ employment duties.”
It’s a fair point; what are shopkeepers supposed to do? A self-defence course, or maybe they need to hire their own thugs - for protection? Realistically, people are going to end up injured and quite possibly dead.
Actually, speaking of thugs, not everyone was unhappy about the move…
Can you just imagine Tamaki’s gang descending on your local library, not simply to shove and abuse people but feeling empowered to start making citizen’s arrests of storytellers because they think reading books is against the word of their god Brian or some rubbish?
A friend of mine posted, “Can't wait to tackle someone for ganking meat and tampons from Pak n Save. Might need a high-vis vest when making my citizen’s arrest. 😂”.
For those of you unfamiliar with the West Auckland vernacular, the word “ganking” means “liberating”. So, for example, if you ganked four legs of lamb from the supermarket, you would have a whole sheep, and it could frolic and be free.
I’m kidding. Obviously, that could never happen as the first leg of lamb would be eaten before the next could be procured - and there you are back to a zero-legged sheep again, which doesn’t make for a lot of frolicking.
Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young, who was also a member of the advisory group, said:
“We have grave concerns about proposals to empower people to physically restrain or physically engage with people to stop them doing a crime, and the fact that could create more violence and people will get hurt.
We know that in the past where people have chased after alleged offenders there have been deaths. There may be an increase in weapons people bring as a result of knowing they could be challenged.”
You can read Retail NZ’s full Press Release here: Retail NZ says citizens’ arrests will worsen violence in stores.
What is to come?
Carolyn makes an excellent point. My first thought was: When are they going to start arming these “citizens,” and is that the sort of society we want?
One where dairy owners have a baseball bat or a gun behind the counter? This is surely where this is heading, and Nicole McKee is just the minister who will start arming shopkeepers.
Even at that, some will say, “Well, don’t commit the crime,” but that assumes the person making the arrest is always 100% in the right.
Quite frankly, we’ve had enough trouble in this country over the years with racial discrimination from our police and justice system - and now we’re just going to hand authority over carte blanche to the nation’s shopkeepers and hope they’re not prejudiced?
I ran a quick survey, which isn’t even vaguely scientific but at least shows that I’m not the only one who thinks:
This is a gimmick; it won’t reduce crime, it won’t help police, it will expose people to violence and the only people I can see who benefit from it are those who might gain at the ballot box.
You know, like advisory group members that would prefer to be MPs.
Just a heads-up that newsletters might be slightly less frequent over the next few days. My mate in Rotorua, who I’ve been visiting in recent months, is not doing well now, so I’m heading down SH1 again tomorrow to see him. Have a good day, all you lovely people - and take care. 🙂
Many of my posts, like this one, are paywall-free, so everyone can read them. However, if you can afford it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. The 20% discount I have had during February finishes tomorrow.
Thanks very much to my existing subscribers. I appreciate your support and well-considered comments that contribute much to this kōrero. 🙂
Ngā mihi,
Nick.
To end, Jane’s Addiction with Been Caught Stealing. It's a nostalgic number for me, from when my mate and I were just young fellas.
Just one more step down the pathway to vigilante justice, with Tamaki holding the lynching rope. No crime happens in a vacuum, and whilst I'm against theft, I'm much more against the financial conditions that more people find themselves living under. Fix that problem and we won't need any vigilante actions that will only increase violence
I'm extremely worried about the "restraint" part - we should remember the subway killing of an unarmed man during restraint, by a "concerned citizen" in New York in front of a carriage of witnesses not so long ago. The victim was black and the other party white, and the killer subsequently was acquitted of murder, and in fact completely exonerated even though the victim was not committing any crime at the time. Do we want to be like that?