So to recap the past couple of days - a 15 year old gets shot at on the motorway while innocently sitting in the back of the family car because some losers with guns decide they don’t like how her family's driving, so they just fire shots into the car.
This on the day we covered what a flop the Government's firearms protection orders are, given they're designed to take guns off bad people and in six months how many times have they used it and done that? Twice, that's it.
So bad people are out there with guns and we know it - they continue to have access to and operate firearms illegally and that's a major problem.
The second major problem is the violence unfolding endlessly in our CBDs.
Broad daylight 5.30pm on a busy Saturday downtown at the Auckland ferry terminal where by the way all the tourists are - I mean what a show we are putting on for them - a gang of thugs, a group of out of control young people start beating up.. kicking, punching, and stomping on.. this poor person.. right in front of everyone.
Heart of the City's Viv Beck said she's been demanding urgent action on Auckland's violent crime for ages; longstanding requests have been seemingly all been ignored.
There's not even a Police station in downtown Auckland for goodness sake, the nearest one is Ponsonby.
People do not feel safe in Auckland's CBD anymore and it's a problem that's not going away, yet no one seems to want to fix it.
Simon Bridges from the Auckland Business Chamber pointed out it's not just a social issue but an economic and business issue too. It needs addressing in the form of more Police presence and that request has been made over and over and over.
In the last three months, three different members of our immediate family have been involved as victims of a crime, and the underlying common thread is that Police have been lenient, disinterested, and happy to let offenders go.
One of the cases involved violence in downtown Auckland - and by violence I mean a punch to the head from behind which saw a kid in hospital for stitches while Police, despite having all the evidence and the offender right in front of them, did not arrest him.
Another was a breaking and entering with destruction of property, and again with an offender at their fingertips, Police let him make his own way home, no remand in custody, just be a good boy and we'll see you in court, try not to break into anyone else's house before then.
The third involves a man remanded on bail, with conditions, where of course he broke the conditions and re-offended.
What I can't work out is - even if the top down message from government is to go lightly on crims and turn a blind eye or keep the prisons empty or whatever the banal ideology behind all this is, it's us who suffer.
Our communities, our kids, our reputation as a country.
And it's the cops whose lives and jobs are made more dangerous too, as criminals get more emboldened.
Their job only gets harder once crime rules; the job of policing becomes nigh on impossible - which it already is clearly.
I just shake my head in disbelief at what's happening to this country and I’m not sure how we fix it.
Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.
5 comments:
We are no longer advised what apparent ethnicity offenders are, and the Police TV programme has been canned so that no longer informs. But even for those not maori, the dictate to police to go super soft on them to keep the statistics down effectively extends at least in part to all. Then maori have all been directly and indirectly diligently coached to "imagine decolonisation", which most interpret as meaning to act with disregard of all behavioural conventions and laws traceable to colonist influence. Pacifica identify with maori and adopt the same approach. No one dares apply any real deterrent as would be seen as racist and trigger the WT and every other racist apologist. Then most youth have been brought up on a relentless diet of graphically violent films and playstation games such as Super Theft Auto where violence is endemic. The violent reactions observed and violence meted become automatic responses. Youth become in efect trained to automatically respond, much as military training of old. Responding with a gun becomes second nature. In my day violence was far less graphic and connected largely with cowboys and Indians, pirates etc, so not directly and automatically associated with the everyday. Whilst rifles were freely carried by hunters in public places, the notion of responding to minor confrontation with a gun was an anathema. And whist few actually went to church, Christian ethics pervaded much of society. Now seen as part of colonisation. The haka now plays a greater role in shaping attitudes and responses. Then we had the cop on the beat. Seen by near all as friend not foe. Now unless in groups and armed they will be mugged or worse. Any vigorus respons by them earns a caning from superiors, the msm, maori apologists, and the WT.
Sounds like Berlin of the early 1920s.
Then came the SA and the streets were safe again.
Go figure.
Re violence and computer games ( which I understand have a budget development boost). Amazing how we are told computer games etc on electronic media are not real so don’t influence yet advertisements on similar media do - that’s why there are advertisements!
This is what happens when you destroy all morality, ridicule normal ethics like responsibility and consequences as well as other conservative values. Have a school system that teachers moral relativism, neo truth and discipline as something old fashioned and repressive but doesn't concern itself with the basics. Allow children to be truant and spending hours watching and playing games with violent content on screens. A welfare system that encourages low uneducated SES women to have babies, but no partner, by paying them welfare. Expend a lot of energy on removing guns from responsible hunters but very little on delinquents with weapons.
What honesty, can you expect that would be different?
And I read that the Budget cut Police funding by $42 million.
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