A
few weeks ago, I found myself pushing what you might term 'law and order'
issues at a candidate selection meeting. Information I had to hand suggested
that many residents of the ward I was looking at running in were increasingly
concerned about street-crime, at the same time Government was closing community
policing stations.
Then, some days later, like an astral projector looking down upon his own material form from on high and tutting, I observed Curwen Ares Rolinson putting together a serious legislative proposal replete with battalions of supporting evidence to try and help ameliorate the present woeful spate of shopkeeper standovers afflicting the Indian community through much of South and West Auckland.
I had, it seems, become something of a 'Law & Order' candidate.
A pretty impressive (if arguably inexplicable) transition for somebody whose last actual interaction with a police officer ended in handcuffs, a free taxi-ride, ensuing professional photo-shoot, and proffered potential prison term.
So how did this happen. What is it which moved me from an extensive stint under wire-tap surveillance by the police's counter-terrorism division as an alleged threat to National['s] security for my political activities, through to using those self-same political proclivities to agitate for a greater state provision of law and order.
To tell you the truth, I'm still piecing together the answer myself. But I think a perhaps surprising degree of it has to do with my own growing involvement in the Indian community. You get talking to people, at the Mandir and elsewhere; you get to know people and you make friends. Suddenly, the nightly newscast story about a dairy proprietor being stood-over - or worse, bashed - for a few cartons of cigarettes and the contents of his til isn't just happening to "some shopkeeper". It's an act of brazen violence being meted out to a person only a degree or two of separation from one's self. Someone I guess you feel like you have a bit of a connection to. And therefore a sense of responsibility towards to try and help.
Now don't get me wrong. Even if I am something of a newfound convert to the importance of law and order, I still retain a healthy skepticism as to its more obvious enforcers. Excesses of policing do happen. Protesters are roughly manhandled. Arthur Allan Thomas - or, worse, Teina Pora - style shenanigans abound. Thousands of burglaries and common assaults go uninvestigated in favour of rounding up pound upon pounds of a mostly-harmless rural cash crop and its peddlers. The Police Force arguably attempts to censor academics. In all areas, and in all ways, the keepers of law are (occasionally somewhat blamelessly) sub-par.
And yet, consider the alternative.
What we're witnessing at present, as a direct result of the steady rollback in easily-available policing under this most recent government, is an increase in petty crime and a decrease in community safety. (And yes, I am aware that there are almost invariably deeper socio-economic drivers of criminality - most especially poverty - which have also only alarmingly increased under the contemporary regime)
The most logical consequence of this tangible absence of police is not what you might call an anarchist paradise nor 'free state'. Instead, it's the embedding and furthering of 'no go' areas in our city after dark - and serious and ongoing intrusions in the peaceable private lives of shopkeepers and citizens alike.
Alongside this, as nature (and, more especially, civilization) abhors a vacuum, there are already growing calls for organizations, apparatuses and civic empowerment of civilians to 'step unto the breech' and start carrying out minor policing/law-enforcement activities themselves. These range in scope from legislative proposals to clarify the Crimes Act sections surrounding 'self defence' and 'defence of property' to give shopkeepers greater surety when using force to defend themselves and their chattels from occasionally quite violent vagrants and intruders ... all the way up to the convening of quasi-militia 'shopkeepers' associations' designed to provide a more *ahem* 'active' deterrence to lawbreaking on our high-streets and corner dairies.
The first set of initiatives, governing the lower end of the spectrum of reform, are legitimate. Everyone has a right to defend themselves from attack using reasonable force - and it can be further extended that if somebody's making off with your property or wares, you have a right to use a reasonable degree of physical intercession to stop them. But with the way the law's drafted at present, Police (and others) can and have taken advantage of perceived ambiguities in what the law allows in order to launch prosecutions aimed at shopkeepers defending themselves. In one memorable case from 2009, their explicit reasoning for so doing was to 'send a message' to the community to refrain from 'intruding' on functions the Police viewed as their fairly exclusive preserve. The charges against the shopkeeper in question - a Mr V. Singh - were only dropped after a high-profile lawyer stepped in and offered to defend Singh in court free of charge.
But even though there's a strong argument to be made in favour of the aforementioned legislative clarification to give shopkeepers and citizens a greater degree of certitude as to how to defend themselves or their possessions without falling afoul of the law ... I feel pretty safe in saying that the vast majority of us would absolutely balk at the next logical step in civic functioning sans police - proprietors keeping a gun under the counter, American-style.
So what is to be done, then?
Well clearly, the extant status-quo of fewer police isn't working. This ought not even be a controversial statement to make, and yet it flies flat in the face of both the Government's official reasoning, and the half-vocalized, hare-brained sentiments of the post-#Occupy quasi-Anarchist rump you occasionally encounter round certain portions of the Arts department who still cleave to the belief that no-policing rather than better-policing is and ought to be the teleological way forward. A most curious ideological alliance-of-convenience indeed.
As I've previously argued in this very column, one of the core components of the true University experience is coming face-to-face with some of your preconceptions, and critically re-evaluating them in light of the evidence - and, just as importantly, the experiences of others. This doesn't mean that these previously held beliefs must be axiomatically cast by the wayside in favour of newer, shiner thoughts - and often, this process of critical introspection and exploration will throw up interesting and intriguing new reasons (or old reasons half-obscured) to continue to support, in slightly evolved form, previous positions.
That’s why I’ve found myself thinking about demands for ‘more and better’ policing from a bit of a different angle to what I have previously.
Where once I would have balked at the notion of a greater bobby-presence in Albert Park due to their evident penchant for arresting harmless stoners ensconced in same (seriously, I've seen it happen), the idea that there's now insufficient police resources to make Queen St safe to walk down at night is clearly repugnant to me. (And, as noted earlier, the potential for the redirection of police resources *from* chasing down morally blameless cannabis-users *to* generating actually-useful improvements in public safety can be squarely filed under the "*better* policing" heading)
And while I still remain somewhat uncomfortable with ordinary people taking the law into their own hands ... my newfound belief and faith in community militates exploring all possible options to make up for the Government’s shortfall in guaranteeing the public good.
It’s been an interesting journey from one extreme to somewhere in the middle of the other; but I look forward to using my brain and the trove of my experiences in service of this newfound purpose.
There. Suddenly, I don't feel all so strange and different from my previous self, after all.
Then, some days later, like an astral projector looking down upon his own material form from on high and tutting, I observed Curwen Ares Rolinson putting together a serious legislative proposal replete with battalions of supporting evidence to try and help ameliorate the present woeful spate of shopkeeper standovers afflicting the Indian community through much of South and West Auckland.
I had, it seems, become something of a 'Law & Order' candidate.
A pretty impressive (if arguably inexplicable) transition for somebody whose last actual interaction with a police officer ended in handcuffs, a free taxi-ride, ensuing professional photo-shoot, and proffered potential prison term.
So how did this happen. What is it which moved me from an extensive stint under wire-tap surveillance by the police's counter-terrorism division as an alleged threat to National['s] security for my political activities, through to using those self-same political proclivities to agitate for a greater state provision of law and order.
To tell you the truth, I'm still piecing together the answer myself. But I think a perhaps surprising degree of it has to do with my own growing involvement in the Indian community. You get talking to people, at the Mandir and elsewhere; you get to know people and you make friends. Suddenly, the nightly newscast story about a dairy proprietor being stood-over - or worse, bashed - for a few cartons of cigarettes and the contents of his til isn't just happening to "some shopkeeper". It's an act of brazen violence being meted out to a person only a degree or two of separation from one's self. Someone I guess you feel like you have a bit of a connection to. And therefore a sense of responsibility towards to try and help.
Now don't get me wrong. Even if I am something of a newfound convert to the importance of law and order, I still retain a healthy skepticism as to its more obvious enforcers. Excesses of policing do happen. Protesters are roughly manhandled. Arthur Allan Thomas - or, worse, Teina Pora - style shenanigans abound. Thousands of burglaries and common assaults go uninvestigated in favour of rounding up pound upon pounds of a mostly-harmless rural cash crop and its peddlers. The Police Force arguably attempts to censor academics. In all areas, and in all ways, the keepers of law are (occasionally somewhat blamelessly) sub-par.
And yet, consider the alternative.
What we're witnessing at present, as a direct result of the steady rollback in easily-available policing under this most recent government, is an increase in petty crime and a decrease in community safety. (And yes, I am aware that there are almost invariably deeper socio-economic drivers of criminality - most especially poverty - which have also only alarmingly increased under the contemporary regime)
The most logical consequence of this tangible absence of police is not what you might call an anarchist paradise nor 'free state'. Instead, it's the embedding and furthering of 'no go' areas in our city after dark - and serious and ongoing intrusions in the peaceable private lives of shopkeepers and citizens alike.
Alongside this, as nature (and, more especially, civilization) abhors a vacuum, there are already growing calls for organizations, apparatuses and civic empowerment of civilians to 'step unto the breech' and start carrying out minor policing/law-enforcement activities themselves. These range in scope from legislative proposals to clarify the Crimes Act sections surrounding 'self defence' and 'defence of property' to give shopkeepers greater surety when using force to defend themselves and their chattels from occasionally quite violent vagrants and intruders ... all the way up to the convening of quasi-militia 'shopkeepers' associations' designed to provide a more *ahem* 'active' deterrence to lawbreaking on our high-streets and corner dairies.
The first set of initiatives, governing the lower end of the spectrum of reform, are legitimate. Everyone has a right to defend themselves from attack using reasonable force - and it can be further extended that if somebody's making off with your property or wares, you have a right to use a reasonable degree of physical intercession to stop them. But with the way the law's drafted at present, Police (and others) can and have taken advantage of perceived ambiguities in what the law allows in order to launch prosecutions aimed at shopkeepers defending themselves. In one memorable case from 2009, their explicit reasoning for so doing was to 'send a message' to the community to refrain from 'intruding' on functions the Police viewed as their fairly exclusive preserve. The charges against the shopkeeper in question - a Mr V. Singh - were only dropped after a high-profile lawyer stepped in and offered to defend Singh in court free of charge.
But even though there's a strong argument to be made in favour of the aforementioned legislative clarification to give shopkeepers and citizens a greater degree of certitude as to how to defend themselves or their possessions without falling afoul of the law ... I feel pretty safe in saying that the vast majority of us would absolutely balk at the next logical step in civic functioning sans police - proprietors keeping a gun under the counter, American-style.
So what is to be done, then?
Well clearly, the extant status-quo of fewer police isn't working. This ought not even be a controversial statement to make, and yet it flies flat in the face of both the Government's official reasoning, and the half-vocalized, hare-brained sentiments of the post-#Occupy quasi-Anarchist rump you occasionally encounter round certain portions of the Arts department who still cleave to the belief that no-policing rather than better-policing is and ought to be the teleological way forward. A most curious ideological alliance-of-convenience indeed.
As I've previously argued in this very column, one of the core components of the true University experience is coming face-to-face with some of your preconceptions, and critically re-evaluating them in light of the evidence - and, just as importantly, the experiences of others. This doesn't mean that these previously held beliefs must be axiomatically cast by the wayside in favour of newer, shiner thoughts - and often, this process of critical introspection and exploration will throw up interesting and intriguing new reasons (or old reasons half-obscured) to continue to support, in slightly evolved form, previous positions.
That’s why I’ve found myself thinking about demands for ‘more and better’ policing from a bit of a different angle to what I have previously.
Where once I would have balked at the notion of a greater bobby-presence in Albert Park due to their evident penchant for arresting harmless stoners ensconced in same (seriously, I've seen it happen), the idea that there's now insufficient police resources to make Queen St safe to walk down at night is clearly repugnant to me. (And, as noted earlier, the potential for the redirection of police resources *from* chasing down morally blameless cannabis-users *to* generating actually-useful improvements in public safety can be squarely filed under the "*better* policing" heading)
And while I still remain somewhat uncomfortable with ordinary people taking the law into their own hands ... my newfound belief and faith in community militates exploring all possible options to make up for the Government’s shortfall in guaranteeing the public good.
It’s been an interesting journey from one extreme to somewhere in the middle of the other; but I look forward to using my brain and the trove of my experiences in service of this newfound purpose.
There. Suddenly, I don't feel all so strange and different from my previous self, after all.
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