Sarah, Anna and Charlotte... all in their 20s... got home from work in Christchurch, and some mug, or mugs, had broken in and stolen their stuff.
Rooms were ransacked. Stolen items? Cameras, laptops, jewellery. Also missing? Clothes, undies and frozen curry from the freezer.
Not the butter chicken!
But there was one thing they needed back urgently - and sparked amateur detectives into action.
A stolen passport. One of them needed to travel overseas.
So, they asked the neighbours - what police would call in a press release 'canvassing the area'.
The neighbours told them which way the robbers went.
What police would call 'positive lines of inquiry'.
They followed the leads, or 'made a breakthrough' in the case.
Found the house the alleged thieves had returned to.
Opened the door, caught the culprits red-handed, wearing their stuff, some guy was staring at their undies.
And they quietly and calmly took back what was theirs.
Great stuff.
The problem is, the police were called, attended the scene, and according to the girls, "they told the police where to go after getting a clue from their neighbours, but they didn’t go there".
Why are these women having to do the cops' job for them? They were told to file an online report. The thieves were just down the road.
About 90% of burglaries go unresolved,
The Herald reported in 2024 just 6.4% - 11,738 - of the burglaries reported over the last four years resulted in an offender being prosecuted.
No wonder people are taking the law into their own hands.
Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
And while only 6.4% of burglaries are successfully prosecuted we see significant police resources patrolling our safest road's ( like the Puhoi to Wellsford motorway) just to catch minor speed infringements. Regularly we observe up the three cars patrolling this small section of our roading system. Policing policy is long overdue a reset - focus on crime not revenue gathering from safe driving law abiding motorists who have erred momentarily.
The simple genuine answer is the are so many of these crimes and too few cops to investigate them.
Like hugely far too few.
Then there's the layers of bureaucracy that they must fight their way through just to get into those criminals house. Because if they don't, it's so easy for these criminals to complain about fascist cops breaching their rights.
All of which means too few cops, expected to do way too much is your answer.
We get this because this is the society we fund and hence, the society we deserve.
If you report an incident to the police number get a selected uncommonly intelligent and seemingly interested person on the other end, who diligently records info and dishes out reference numbers etc. But it is all just a PR exercise. What used to be regarded as anti social illegal activity is now accepted to a very high bar. So all the interaction is just a waste of your time. Which is how they view court time. It is expected that all incidents will be recorded on phone or security camera. If cannot provide, regarded as victim's fault.
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