By Chris Trotter*
It is fashionable, in some quarters, to sneer at political parties who advance the issues of law and order in an election year. As if it is not one of the prime duties of the state to ensure that its citizens live in peace and safety. With more than two dozen gang-related drive-by shootings dominating (entirely justifiably) the headlines of the past few weeks, there would be something amiss with our democracy if at least one major political party did not raise the issues of law and order in the most aggressive fashion.
The National Party has done just that and, over the weekend, spelt out in some detail how it proposes to address the rising level of gang-related violence. For the most part the measures announced: banning the public wearing of gang patches; passing non-consorting legislation; issuing immediate dispersal orders; and empowering the Police to undertake unwarranted firearms searches seizures; have been borrowed from the Australian states – most particularly, Western Australia.
National’s Police spokesperson, Mark Mitchell, insists that these measures have proved to be highly effective against the Australian gangs. Criminologists and lawyers beg to differ: arguing that the principal effect of this kind of highly intrusive law enforcement is to drive the gangs ever deeper underground. Meaningful engagement with the authorities is rendered even more difficult, and there is an amping-up of the aggro between the “outlaws” and “law-abiding” citizens.
The banning of gang patches, for example, is unlikely to slow down gang members for very long. The most obvious workaround for such a ban would be to substitute the wearing of coloured items for the banned patches. For many years, those associating themselves with the Mongrel Mob have worn red, while their traditional rivals, Black Power, have favoured blue. Any number of indicators might be used to denote a member’s position in the gang hierarchy: bandannas, tattoos, hats, belts, boots. It is hard to see how Parliament could ban the wearing of particular colours or items of clothing without inspiring all manner of legal challenges.
Laws forbidding certain classes of persons from consorting with one another have a long history. The rationale behind such laws was that since most serious crimes require careful organisation and planning, making it a criminal offence for known felons to be found in each other’s company would render the orchestration of criminal activity especially difficult. Australia’s anti-consorting laws not only make it illegal for criminals to communicate face-to-face, but also electronically. Telephoning, texting and e-mailing are verboten, along with social-media messaging and online meetings courtesy of Skype and Zoom.
The issuing of immediate dispersal orders, and the carrying out unwarranted firearm searches and seizures, raise all manner of health and safety objections. It would be a very brave collection of constables that would order a couple of hundred patched gang-members en route to a fallen brother’s funeral to turn their Harley-Davidsons around an go home. How, exactly, would they respond if the gang leader did a quick head-count of the officers present and politely informed them to stick their dispersal order where the sun don’t shine?
“Or you’ll what?”, is the oldest question in law enforcement. (Or politics, for that matter.) Throw a search for unlawful firearms into the situation described above and the potential for serious – even fatal – violence rises exponentially. Simple prudence would suggest that before attempting such measures the Police would first have to assemble an enforcement body of sufficient size and fearsomeness to give even the staunchest gang leader pause.
What’s more, such a force would have to be available more-or-less instantaneously. It took the NZ Police upwards of a week to assemble the 250-500 police officers needed to clear Parliament Grounds of its anti-vaccination protesters. Gang members are not going to sit on the side of the road for a week while the Police assemble a force equal to the task of disarming and dispersing them!
Building-up such a force is not impossible, but it will require a lot of officers, a lot money and a lot of time. What’s more, the existence of such a highly-trained and fearsomely-armed company of Police Praetorians may prove to be no less disconcerting than the gangs they were created to eliminate! Add to this unease the Bill of Rights ramifications of National’s draconian law enforcement proposals, and the chances of their early introduction are slim.
With the National Party Opposition so far declining to confirm the dramatic increase in Police numbers and resources required to implement its tough anti-gang policies, taking its promises seriously is rather difficult. More knee-jerk than needful, perhaps?
To make an appreciable dent in the gang phenomenon, it is necessary to address its principal raison d’être – the making of money. Risking injury, incarceration and death makes sense only when presented with the prospect of massive profits. Eliminating this incentive may be accomplished in two ways: Politicians can reduce the demand for illicit substances and/or services by legalising them. Or, law enforcement agencies can reduce dramatically the supply of these substances/services. This can be achieved by seizing the product, arresting the suppliers, smashing the distribution system, or, preferably, managing to do all three at the same time.
If this is your strategy, then it is brain you need, not brawn. The key to interdicting and reducing the supply of illegal substances/services is intelligence. Law enforcement needs to know where it is coming from and when, who will be carrying it and uplifting it, where it will be stored, and who will be organising its distribution. Discover these facts, and supply cannot help but be disrupted. What’s more, the management structure of the organised criminal enterprises involved will be seriously damaged. Two birds, one stone.
Disrupting supply in this way can be achieved in three ways: by persuading well-placed gangsters to inform on their confederates; by infiltrating undercover operatives into the heart of the criminal organisation; and by using state-of-the-art electronic surveillance techniques to intercept the communications of the criminal organisation. Preferably, all three of these techniques will be used by the Police. Certainly, this was how the five Mafia families of New York were brought down by the FBI in the 1980s.
The drive-by shootings currently plaguing Auckland are a reflection of a supply operation that has grown either too loose or too tight. Control of “the corners” (as they used to say in the TV series “The Wire”) is being contested by The Tribesmen and The Killer Beez because there is either an over-supply of product and one gang is attempting to seize the entire market for itself, or, there is a shortage of product and the two gangs are competing for the corners (distribution points) because until one or the other controls the lot, their respective operations will become increasingly unprofitable.
The National Party Opposition would be better employed talking to the Police Commissioner about the best ways to hack the communications of the distributors as well as the suppliers of illegal substances and services. It is difficult to shoot up somebody’s house if you are intercepted en route, your weapons confiscated, and you are sent down for criminal conspiracy to commit murder for five years.
In the immortal words of Sun Tzu: “Foreknowledge cannot be gotten from ghosts and spirits, cannot be had by analogy, cannot be found out by calculation. It must be obtained from people, people who know the conditions of the enemy.”
Gang violence will not be ended by politicians getting tougher, but by police officers getting smarter.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
53 Comments
It is difficult to shoot up somebody’s house if you are intercepted en route, your weapons confiscated, and you are sent down for criminal conspiracy to commit murder for five years.
If the current police response isn't this, then why bother talking to the current commissioners? Why is the bar higher for gang responses for the opposition than the current government, under whomst the gang situation has ramped up? If we're going to end up doing things that don't work either way, we might as well try something different
Like this?
“Or you’ll what?” More of a statement than a question. Same as “make me” which overheard from a bunch of some gang members to a couple of young police trying to get the bikes from blocking footpath access. Make me of course meant make us. That’s part of the problem. Safety in numbers expands from that sort of security into disrespect for others and the old attraction and prestige of being the ring leader. Do agree with Mr Trotter here that surveillance and gathered intelligence has more prospect than head on confrontation. The police need to be given more direction than at present, but to use it smartly.
The police are still the largest and best resourced gang in NZ.
So "or what?"
"Or we will mobilise and we will follow you all everywhere you go. We will issue you all with FPO's and then we can stop and search you for weapons continually. And we will tell the boss it was caused by you."
A great article.
Gang numbers are swelling and related shootings increasing AT THE SAME TIME we see increase in all other crimes.. shop break ins, home break ins.
Seems its all happening at the same time (and in a very large part caused by) the wealth divide has massively widened.
The wealth divide is something 7-house-Luxon and his other MPs will make worse by trying to make property investment continue to work for them - at the expense of the poor.
We need government with a proper strategy... populist short term policies (like nationals crime policies) might get one in, but are making things untenable in the long term?
Smart policing PLUS a strategy to level the economic playing field in Nz are key.
It's a larger part caused by decades of creating institutionalised state dependencies as the underlying basis of the NZ economy instead of real work & income.
The Labour Govt's virtue signalling gun laws only affected the law abiding owners "when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns". The Govt now want a national gun register so the crims know where to go "shopping" - 4000 licensed gun owner details stolen from the Police station a week ago.
The Labour Govt funded the gangs around $3M a while back to help cleanup the people who they sold drugs to in the first place so it's not clear that the Govt knows what it's doing...
Labour reduced the prison population by 30% since 2017 while violent crime increases roughly 33%, join the dots...
Labour is repealing the 3 strikes legislation
Most poverty is housing-driven, per recent work released in the media (organisations working in poverty in NZ).
Our policy has for decades now rewarded possession of land while devaluing productive work, and we have pushed more and more people out the bottom of the market and made them ready recruits for gangs. We saw similar growth in gang numbers during National's last turn in government under this present government.
However, proposing policy that didn't work last time around is not going to be a great approach to resolving the issues.
(Labour continued the gang initiative started under National, true.)
Does CT get that the gangs and their violence are just a superficial, although admittedly serious, issue? The root problem is the utter lack of economic opportunity, especially outside the major centres. Neither party seems to get it but National is worse than Labour. Flashy, hi-tech solutions might make nice banners for elections, but at best they will only deliver for 1% of the population. Real policies that provide real economic opportunities for the average, unqualified school leaver in Kawerau or Patea are what is required, otherwise the gang issue will get worse, a lot worse. And of course the costs go up with that. The costs of the violence, the full prisons, the benefits.
I largely agree with CT here, the cops need to be smarter and faster, but they will just be the plaster on a festering sore.
You are correct. Remove opportunity to get ahead and be a part of 'normal' society then you get growing numbers of disenfranchised who choose another route in life..
Can you blame these guys...I don't...I get the appeal.
Politicians and banksters are the ones I blame.
The wealth effect of housing has has destroyed so many dreams and aspirations.
Watched a documentary a while back on prisons in America. They interviewed this one dude who basically said he belongs in prison and shouldn't be released.
"Why do you say that?"
"Because when the bills need to be paid I'm going to try do it the legit way, but if that doesn't work I'm going to get a gun and pay my bills"
“Or you’ll what?”, is the oldest question in law enforcement. ... Simple prudence would suggest that before attempting such measures the Police would first have to assemble an enforcement body of sufficient size and fearsomeness to give even the staunchest gang leader pause."
The periods of lowest rates of violent crime coincide with the decades immediately after the 2 World Wars. When a large proportion of the adult male population were both trained & experienced in lethal force (& had relatively easy access to firearms). Remembering my own ancestors, they generally didn't stand for any antisocial behaviour.
It's rather insane that people still believe the decades long running and failed war on drugs just needs to be ramped up further.
https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/four-decades-counting-continued-fa…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade
The argument from CT and others seem to be the rest of just sit back and cop it in the form of increased social unrest and shootings on our streets, until... what exactly? They get bored and take up the cloth?
So far this year we've had one shooting incident next door and two more in the area visible from my house. I'm kind of not really here for the 'well whatever National proposes won't work' partisan approach to this because I don't actually care who does what, what I know is that what is being done now (or, let's be honest, not being done now) is letting things unravel at a frantic pace. But blue team bad, red team good so the lived experiences of civilians just get set aside because the Govt is copping heat over something and trashing the opposition plan is easier than admitting yours might not be that good either. But let me know when you're the ones with armed offenders squad members telling you to keep your baby as far away from one side of the house as possible at 5am, then we'll talk about how well this is all going.
What we probably actually need is some sort of bipartisan accord to the issue. National's policy proposed in recent days obviously has not worked in the past, and won't now, and they've a history of underfunding Police, to boot (recall Judith Collins' calling out Bill English underfunding). Under resourcing police is a problem, as we can see in media coverage that they do take down illegal gang operations regularly.
A bipartisan accord might encompass
- Funding police properly
- Funding social initiatives to reduce the funnel of people ripe for gang recruitment
- Incentivising productive work over land speculation, to increase social mobility
- Removing the marijuana revenue stream from gangs
Agreed, but show me any NZ government in the last 100 years that hasn't at least to some extent tried to provide jobs in some ways and do things that they think are right for the country's economy to be strong to provide jobs, they all do it in different ways.
But generally they are all trying to archive the same thing, a good economy and good society.
People make it sound like it's a brand new idea that no one else has ever thought of before, "the way to end gangs is to end poverty etc", there is nothing new in this philosophy at all.
It achieves nothing to try to re-brand it as something never tried before.
You got it. As any good doctor will tell you, treat the disease, not the symptom. Gangs are a symptom.
The problem is that this approach tends to get interpreted as being a soft touch. When people are scared, they want knee-jerk reactions, eye-for-an-eye kind of stuff. Politicians know this, and play to the fear.
Ban gang patches? I think I'd rather know who to avoid when in public, tyvm.
Ah, a long drawn out process that avoids accountability for a worsening situation? Man, I can't fathom why this isn't just making things better? Maybe, just maybe, sitting around making excuses and pointing to problems that will take decades to solve to absolve your own inaction isn't something the general populace are willing to accept when there are shootings on their streets on a regular basis.
Wild, I know, but that's democracy for you.
Ridiculous! The reason so many chiefs invited the British to come in and formally colonise NZ via the Treaty was that early "gangs" - ie various strong and aggressive tribes - were constantly pillaging and killing others.
The use of force for groups of people to take what they wanted from vulnerable others considerably pre-dates colonisation in New Zealand, and in most places around the world. We see it today in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Chris Trotter. The cop I know best is very smart indeed. And spends his day on intelligence, strangling drug supply and ruining the day of gang dealers. A happy man.
Police are on to it.
But of it's an uphill task of course. We need to support such activities in the courts like we don't now. Giving gang members benefits or accommidation without strings as we do now misses a strong lever.
Gang members decide to be in the gangs, and will exit when on balance it's not worth it.
And of course social determinants need to be sorted. The housing cost has been New Zealands greatest disaster. Total government inconpetence there.
And spends his day on intelligence, strangling drug supply and ruining the day of gang dealers.
Does this actually help though? Demand for drugs will always exist, I think we can say that with confidence. Taking out a 'dealer' just increases the potential profitability for others who then quickly fill the void. The smartest thing to do would be to take the income stream away from the gangs entirely. If only there was something that could be done...
Its all about the money from the meth trade.
Allowing meth and those profiting to get to the scale it has should be unacceptable. All involved, gangs, their lawyers and accountants hiding the proceeds etc, and associates should have all assets seized and jail time outsourced to the lowest tenderer. Perhaps burying radioactive waste by hand in the Mongolian desert would be reflective on the damage they are doing to NZ.
Over the years Police have continually been lumped with mopping up the effects of poor Govt policy, under funding and the great divide between the haves and have nots. Their role now involves as much if not more counselling, mental health work, security work, babysitting and administration as it does fighting/preventing crime.
Politicians can say what they want but it is all absolutely meaningless unless they resource the Police properly and let them get back to their core role. If this was to happen then they could focus on gangs, target them, prosecute them, ticket them....basically harass the crap out of them to let them know that they will not be tolerated.
Gangs are catastrophic for society, make no mistake, gangs make their money by dealing drugs, bad drugs like meths! which get you hooked quickly for life. I hate NZ's soft approach to everything, I would far prefer OZ's tougher stance. Gangs are criminal organisations which ruin NZ. The tougher the rules and enforcement against gangs, the better. I would make them illegal if it was up to me.
Agree fully Yvil lived in oz for twenty years never had to feel unsafe had to come back to nz for that . Christ starts off by saying how cops in oz handle it and how successful it is , then goes on to say it doesn't work ? In Queensland while I lived there gangs were targeted with patch ban , nonconsorting laws , headquarters raided . It worked they were finished up many left and went to softer states .
read an article once about a lady who did some research showing that gang members tend to have smaller..er "members". They created billboards (think it was the US or Canada) with the info on, and local gang membership shrunk (pun intended ;) )
An alternative to all the "macho" approaches...?
(can't find reference to it now though)
It took the NZ Police upwards of a week to assemble the 250-500 police officers needed to clear Parliament Grounds of its anti-vaccination protesters.
Obviously the priority this government gives to crushing antigovernment protests cannot be replicated against criminal gangs?
I know it probably wouldn't be popular, but I'd legalise all drugs via sale through some kind of state owned entity. The war on drugs appears to have done very little to stem drug use in our society. If anything, it has glorified its use within certain sections of society.
At the very least
- profits would be funneled into the government's coffers, rather than the gangs, and could be used to deal with some of the issues caused by drugs within society.
- If done correctly, a lot of petty crime could be reduced, as my assumption is that a lot of those crimes are simply people trying to fund their drug addiction.
- we'd actually get some real data about how widespread drug use is, and be able to make some concrete decisions about how best to deal with it.
Our war on drugs is a lot like our road toll war on speed — doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. It is high time that we tried a different approach.
I think it is a head in the sand approach to expect that we can eliminate drug use entirely within our society. Therefore, it would be better to adapt the approach more towards minimising harm on individuals and society as a whole, based on the realisation that some members of society will choose to use drugs regardless of their legality.
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