Duncan Garner: Will the arrests of citizens discourage retailers or will someone die?

Shoplifting became so common and naked in New Zealand that sometimes it seemed that the plunder under control. People with full trolleys are in a hurry to be unnecessary and powerless security guards, they swear, throwing fists. Unfortunately this is New Zealand today – and we could not have put a weaker answer
than I did.

The latest crime survey and victims in New Zealand show a 12% increase in “related theft and crimes” at the retail headquarters between 2023 and 2024, NZ Herald reported, and retail traders lose billions every year. We are not talking about health and safety risks for staff and customers or the cost of these crimes leads to higher prices.

The last government was following the problem of growth. Instead of grabbing the criminals of the neck of the neck, we grabbed the flowers and looked. Encouraged the crime. Crooks knew they would not be touched.

I reversed an answer and became paralyzed by analysis. We have excessively interpreted the law and we spent all the time coming out of our way so as not to touch, offend or catch the criminals. We have spent all the time worried that we could overcome the fingerprint and, in this process, we emphasize it through a margin and the robbers won.

It is tempting to say that these offenses have decreased to the crisis of the costs of life; That people are stealing to feed their families. But retail crime is not just the poor man seeking food.

My friend is a security guard at one of the largest pak’nsaves in the country. He is familiar with the “thief gangs” belonging to the organized crime rings, which, at their peak, would target eight supermarkets a day – that is eight supermarkets on the thief. As a group organized by thieves, they worked on a list, so no two people were in the same supermarket at the same time. Modus operandi involved older men wore free clothes and filled expensive meat cuts and jackets.

The retail crime opened our bird openly, but their arrogance, swagger, right and lack of empathy determined us to find a solution.

The coalition government led by the national team spent the best part of last year finding a solution and a stick to beat these people. It is now promising to change the law on crimes to provide citizens with more arrest or restraint capacity, in order to address the crime of retail. Those who make “citizens’ arrests” will be obliged to contact the police for additional instructions.

But you cannot accuse the government of being prevented in detail – the announcement came with little details. More cops? No – despite a 500 new police target, we have fewer than when the coalition took over at the end of 2023.

Instead, the solution is … us. You, me and the next type or girl – we will all have the powers to arrest a citizen and to hold alleged criminals if we suspect that something is not correct.

Do we receive resources, training, sticks and spray with pepper? You know the answer to it.

Some will have no problem to grab the ears of these idiots and to stand on the arrival of the police, but it is a risky game, and the government sends us on the line of first unprepared, subdone and with a naivety that could set fire to everyone.

I wonder if it is actually the state negligence to believe that we can all take this. The police tell us daily not to take things in our own hands; They tell us to remain available and to leave difficult things, such as arrests and restraint. They are informed, I know who they are dealing with and have back-up-spray with pepper, handcuffs, zipper links and access to firearms and firearms if things become so serious. They have news, experience and effective training in approach and work nails.

The others of us? Not so much. So I share NZ’s retail concerns that it’s just a matter of time before someone is killed. Then what? Is the government on the hook for compensation? And if the citizen who makes the arrest is enthusiastic and uses an unjustified force?

It’s a mining field, don’t you? And the Government’s response to this is, well, the courts will decide.

I intervened once I saw a physically abused man and surrounding a woman who thought she was her daughter or partner. I quickly retired when he accused me and was soon obvious that it was likely to have taken something.

He was wild for me because he intervened and became worse for her. I called the police, which is the advice that the police offers us every day, because we know about the good Samaritans who die because they tried to help. I still remember the death of the three -year -old Austin Hemms father, who was attacked when he was helping a woman who was assaulted in Mills Lane, behind Queen St, CBD in Auckland in September 2008. Subsequently died of his wounds.

The Moral Police Force of Destiny

Rather, the emotion from the dear Destiny Church is a worrying, when he heard about the new powers of citizens arrest. The self-named bishop Brian Tamaki passed directly on the social networks receiving the new measures for ordinary citizens.

Ready to not be encouraged and seem to interpret these new powers as if coming from God and they have given them to escape the land of anyone who considers them to be morally and sexually false. God, we could reach the Police of the citizens of Bishop Brian, and then what is the point?

But I could not continue as I was, with the owners of supermarkets who trained the security guards to follow, rather than to act too busy to meet the crimes considered as small. Often, the goods taken are below $ 300 – but, collectively, it is added soon.

We want a good sense to prevail, we want action, we want to stop buyers.

Of course, the Government’s best response would be hundreds of police officers and better prepared, but our leaders do not invest in people and systems. Rather, they fall back. You need Chinese war vessels on your neighbor’s door to change the government’s thinking – that’s why our defense budget is about to get a massive growth.

As I say, only those who feel able to take the arrest of a citizen will do so; They could only help a security guard with someone’s restraint. At least this will force the police to appear.

A guy we were working for, the Todd Scott publisher was such a witness to an imagined type of beers in a Auckland CBD supermarket, that he approached him and sat on him as he trained the store to call the police for back.

But the store said that the police would not come. They knew this from experience. But Scott urged him to try at least. They did and the message came back: “The police said they let him leave, they can’t get here.”

So, carefully, Scott raised and the big guy under him stopped. No incident, just a dozen stolen beers – again. Scott was angry that he would put his ass on the line, and the police did not show.

That will have to change now. The police will have to give up thinking that the supermarket is a priority and grow their game. If we put on our backs on the line, we need to know that the police will be there quickly.

National promised action in this regard, to see now if this last scheme offers a result – or turns into cream.

It is too easy to apologize why something is too hard to do. So, although the growth of citizens’ powers to make arrests is a legal mining field, this is not a reason to stand behind and accept crime.