Kerre Woodham: The shoplifting directive is not a good look

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. You cannot go into an election promising to get tough on crime, win the election and vow to draw a line in the sand, declare war on the crims, and then issue a directive that police won't turn up to minor crime. To paraphrase supermodel Linda Evangelista, who famously said she wouldn't get out of bed for less than $10,000, it appears our coppers won't get out of their Skodas for less than $500.  

A memo has surfaced directing police staff not to investigate crimes under a certain value, such as shoplifting goods under $500. As you can imagine, there have been howls of outrage from retailers and dairy owners, and police are now scrambling to explain themselves. Ann-Marie Johnson, Retail NZ manager, was on Early Edition this morning. She says that retailers do have a realistic expectation of police.  

“Retailers know that police aren't going to show up to every small, very minor case of shoplifting, but we certainly want to know that they're taking these crimes seriously and that where they can, they will be following up and arresting. Often they're repeat offenders, so we know who they are, and police know who they are, so we want to particularly focus on those people.” 

Well, exactly. I remember ages ago I left my window open. I used to live in a villa that was on the street, and I left the window open in summer and some opportunistic heffer managed to heave herself through the window and scoop up what she could see in my bedroom and disappear. And I rang the police, not because I expected them to turn up, but because I needed the case number for my insurance claim, but somebody turned up about 3 or 4 days later and dusted for fingerprints on the windowsill. And because of that, they were able to match it to a nest of Vipers in West Auckland, a group of women who had committed all sorts of petty thefts and burglaries and crimes, and so it was worth holding off on the house cleaning and not doing the window sill so the police could dust for fingerprints. 

Of course they can't turn up to every crime. I know that, but it's not a good look. Police Minister Mark Mitchell says he is happy to talk, but he doesn't want to get ahead “of the police executive who are going to clarify their position”. I can only imagine the “please explain” face on the Minister when he made a call to the newish-Commissioner.  

It's one thing for us all to know that if our wallet is nicked because we stupidly left it on a bus stop seat, we know the police aren't going to converge on the scene of the crime, all blues and two in their numbers. It is quite another thing to know that a directive has been sent applying nationally standardised threshold values when assessing theft and fraud. Losing $500 worth of groceries and goods can have a huge impact on a small business' weekly turnover, and I sure as hell do not want to see losers walking out of supermarkets with $500 worth of groceries, getting a free pass.  

You don't elect a centre right government for that sort of carry on. That was the very thing that galvanised a significant number of voters to vote centre right. You may not be able to get to every petty thief in the country, you know that. I know that the retailers know that, and the crims sure as hell know that, but the messaging from police has to be that they're going to jolly well try. 

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