Listen Now: 
Download AudioWaipareira chief executive John Tamihere says we can’t police our way out of the current crime surge.
He says the media and the politicians calling for more law and order ignore the fact youth offending is actually dropping.
A lot of the spate of ram raids and dairy robberies is poor young people acting out in poor communities after being confined during the pandemic.
“It’s happening internally and poor people often practise the politics of poverty which is to take it out on one another. That’s why domestic violence is so high and the violence perpetrated on other communities is not great. Yet all the white hand-wringers come out and say we’ve got a Government that is soft on crime and we need more cops. You can’t police your way out of this,” Mr Tamihere says.
He says while there are differences, what is happening can be compared to a short spike in offending that came after National’s Mother of All Budgets in 1992, which sharply cut benefits and social services.
RELATED NEWS
