Kerre Woodham: Reasonable force and citizen's arrests

Retailers and members of the public will soon have more ability to detain shoplifters and thieves under beefed up citizen's arrest powers. At 2pm today, the government's expected to announce a range of measures aimed at curbing rising retail theft, which have been proposed by a Ministerial Advisory Group formed to address retail crime.  

It's pretty clear what the advisory group is looking for. The old rules around citizen’s arrests were absurd. Under the current legislation, making a citizen's arrest or detaining an offender could only occur at night between 9pm and 6am, because of course, there's no such thing as daylight robbery. Wrong. The Crimes Act also stated a warrantless arrest could be made by anyone if the offender was committing a crime for which the maximum punishment was at least three years in prison. So, if you're going in to protect somebody who was being assaulted, for example. It was also understood the value of the item being stolen had to be worth at least $1000. What if I went to nab Golriz Ghahraman while she was shoplifting $1000 dress at Scotties, but it was on sale? Then what? What a conundrum. Do I step in or do I not? Absurd, utter nonsense.  

The changes were intended to enable shop owners or security guards to prevent a thief from leaving a retail store with the stolen goods without risking being charged for using force. Ministers Goldsmith and McKee are expected to explain the application of reasonable force in those scenarios at the 2pm stand up. It was understood that the proposed changes are intended to come into force this year, wouldn't have age limitations, and wouldn't require a minimum price for the stolen items before a citizen's arrest could be made.  

Former Police Minister Stuart Nash told Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning that like everyone, he's sick of seeing people getting away with thumbing their noses at the community: 

“You got a situation Mike, where if you steal stuff, which is, you know, obviously you're stealing something over $1000 that’s pretty serious. If you’re just shoplifting, then the cost of prosecuting someone is substantial compared to the crime that's being committed. But what you've ended up with is a really terrible situation where these guys just get away with it.  

“So what we were seriously looking at is some form of fine, or something along those lines, which was proportionate. With the citizen's arrest, yeah you know, I’m a fan, there's no doubt about that. But it's got to be proportionate. You know, we don't want to get to a stage where big tough guys like yourself are using this to beat the crap out of someone.” 

No, and that's fair enough. But that has always been the thorniest of issues. There was a real spate of farmers getting into all sorts of trouble for defending their properties and the use of reasonable force was the question being debated. What was forceful and what was not, but I think we've all had a guts full of people brazenly getting away with stealing stuff. Two fingers to the shop owner, one finger to society. Even the ones who aren't causing any physical harm ,the ones who are just walking and grabbing what they want and walking out.  

It's an outrage, they're sneering at people who are doing their best, who are going to work, who are trying to budget, who are trying to squeeze every last cent out of their wallets to pay the household groceries, and then they just watch as people march by with a trolley full of crap that they load into the boot of somebody's car and off. I want to see them stopped. I want to see them stopped and the people who stop them be able to walk home and think, well, that was a job well done.  

But two words. Austin Hemmings. Austin Hemmings was the brave, decent man who stepped in one ordinary after workday in 2008, to help a woman who was in clear distress and who had called out for help after a man confronted and threatened her. And so he did. He went in to help this woman and for doing the right thing, this husband and father of three was stabbed in the chest and died. He was awarded the Bravery Star, New Zealand's second highest award for bravery in 2011, and his killer will be coming up for parole either this year or the next.  

So I want to see the community able to fight back and to work together to stop thugs and thieves, but I really don't want to see another family having to live with the loss of a good and decent man. And what's proportional force? Remember, the Sheriff of Ngawi? This was a man in a coastal community in Wairarapa and like the rest of us, he’d had a guts full of lowlifes coming over the hill, into their community, ransacking people's holiday homes and taking what they wanted. By the time you called the police, these thugs had put their goods up on trade me and had made their fortune.  So the townsfolk of Ngawi got together and the Sheriff of Ngawi fired a gun across the bowels of the stolen car that these thugs were attempting to make their getaway in. And for that he went to court, he was fined $3000, and he was forced to hand over his gun.  

Yes, I want to see us be able to defend ourselves, but I want to know what reasonable force is. I personally think firing a gun over the heads of some lowlifes is perfectly reasonable. Firing a gun at a getaway car I think is perfectly reasonable. When it's not the first time, when the police cannot help, perfectly reasonable. But I do want to see us make more use of technology too. Supermarkets should be investing in the software that prevents thieves leaving the stores with trolleys and arm loads of stolen groceries. That technology exists. I can understand risking my life to protect the life of another, and I hope that I would be as brave as Austin Hemmings and do so. But risking my life to protect the supermarkets profits, yeah not so much.

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