Govt crackdown on gangs: Legal expert queries effectiveness

The Government enforced a ban on gang patches this week and introduced legislation to continue the rollout of boot camps, but questions remain about whether they will work.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell wants to make New Zealand the “safest place in the world”, and says removing gang insignia from public display is a key step.

“There's a trail of tears of victims sitting behind each one of those gang patches.

“To earn the right to wear one of those, [a gang member] has to show that they have the ability to commit violent crime.

“They're quite simply designed to intimidate the public and the communities that they're in, and we feel that it's time to say enough's enough.”

In September this year, police estimated the number of patched and prospect gang members to be 9384, rising from 8875 in April 2023 and 4915 in April 2017.

Speaking to William Terite on Pacific Mornings, Mitchell said communities felt this increase.

“The fact that gangs have become more violent by carrying firearms, they're more willing to use them.

“Big increase of methamphetamine and drugs, which gangs are sitting behind a lot of that, and just a disproportionate amount of violent crime that they're responsible for.”

Two arrests were made since the ban was enforced on Thursday morning, but Mitchell said there had been “pretty broad compliance”.

University of Auckland associate professor of criminology, Tamasailau Suaalii, said the ban should be carefully implemented.

“It's one of those things that speaks to attempts to try and get a quick fix for a very complex and deeply rooted problem in society … one that assumes a particular understanding of gangs and a particular association between gangs and criminality.”

Putting the boot in boot camps

On Thursday, the Oranga Tamariki Responding to Serious Youth Offending Bill had its first reading at Parliament despite criticism over a lack of evidence, and one of the participants being accused of reoffending, just five weeks after completing the course.

Ram raids have been a major issue in rising youth crime. Photo/File

Children’s Minister Karen Chhour told RNZ that it was naive to think reoffending wouldn’t happen and other participants were “thriving”.

"I'm not going to sit here in a few years time and have a failure of not trying anything, these young people deserve an opportunity to be the best that they can be."

Suaalii said reports from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care suggested the boot camp model wouldn’t work. Still, some variation or intervention could act as a circuit breaker.

“It doesn't get to the root of the problem around why young people offend.

“But it might offer some opportunity where young people can go away from the intensity of the issues that they're facing, with really safe people who can implement programs that are really useful.

“People can regroup, get perspective on issues, find ways to deal with the cause of the offending or reoffending, or to really build relationships that can help the families and the young people."

A cultural approach to crime

Suaalii had researched Sāmoan and Māori experiences of the justice system, and said genuine change comes when people are able to bring their whole selves to the restoration process.

“Culture is a part of our humanity and that we need to understand how culture affects our behaviour.

“So being Sāmoan, being Pacific Islander, being of your particular cultural ethnic group, that's part of who we are, and we need to be able to speak to that in our systems, that are there to assess how to help us.

“When we go before the courts, when we get considered for how to deal with making things that were wrong right, we need to be able to bring all of those aspects of ourselves that go towards restoring justice.”

Suaalii said this was crucial for understanding the context in which people offend and why, as well as how to prevent conditions that create offending situations.

She said close relationships and community groups, such as churches, marae, and neighborhoods, were best when it came to preventing crime in the first place and supporting victims and offenders in their healing.

“There's no way that we're going to be able to have everybody understand our individual situations, family situations, community situations, so the best people to do that are those that are in our immediate vicinity, those that we live with, those that we frequent."

Funding for cultural background checks soared to $5.91 million in 2022 before being cut by the coalition government.

Looking ahead

Mitchell said having a strong value system and good role models were the foundations for safer communities, and he encouraged Pacific families to model this.

“I went to Rosmini College, my best mates were Sāmoan, so I grew up with the Stewart's and the Pereira's, and I have a lot to do with our Pasifika community.

“They’re normally steeped in very, very strong family values and religious values and we need to see more of that.

“Because society's torn a bit, and parenting, good male role models for kids, that is the best thing that we could do as a country in terms of especially our kids tend to go off the rails and end up on a fast track into the youth justice facility and then into the adult justice system.”

Suaalii said our approach to crime and justice must have commitment from all sides of government.

“We have to be able to invest in long-term solutions beyond one government being in place, and this is what the public service is supposed to be about, right?

“We invest in the state, we invest in the public service to get the policies right to advise their ministers, and it's supposed to be for the long term.”