The Language Of Those With Nothing Left To Say.

Running Wild: Three of the more than 100 young people who trashed and burned a Wawa convenience store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, earlier this year. This degree of lawlessness, akin to, but a whole order of magnitude greater than, our own ram-raids, is indicative of a society that has lost all respect for itself. Societies that respect themselves produce citizens who respect their fellow citizens – and their property .

WHILE NEW ZEALANDERS RECOIL in shock from a seemingly endless series of ram-raids, the news from overseas is worse.

According to the UK internet magazine, Spiked: “a few weeks ago, about 100 young people ransacked a Wawa convenience store in Philadelphia. The mob stole merchandise, knocked over shelves and threw food and drinks around, leaving the store looking like a natural disaster had hit it. Many got their phones out to record the madness. As chaos reigned, a young woman twerked on a counter. Fighting spilled out into the parking lot.”

This degree of lawlessness, akin to, but a whole order of magnitude greater than, our own ram-raids, is indicative of a society that has lost all respect for itself. Societies that respect themselves do not produce young people who pillage convenience stores or drive stolen cars into neighbourhood dairies. Societies that respect themselves produce citizens who respect one another.

Those who recall the rioting that accompanied the “Black Lives Matter” protests against the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer back in 2020, may also recall the number of times journalists and politicians repeated the words of Martin Luther King:

“Let me say as I’ve always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.”

What happened in Philadelphia, however, was not the spilling-over of rage at the death of yet another African-American at the hands of the Police. White America heard the rage of the BLM protesters – and the rioters. What happened inside that Wawa store is what happens when White America hears the rage – and ignores it.

Comfortable New Zealand needs to ask itself whether the ram-raids it finds so disturbing are the product of something similar.

Prime Minister Ardern and her Labour colleagues promised action against poverty and homelessness. A government, supposedly driven by “the politics of kindness”, pledged itself to fulfilling a “transformational” programme of social and economic change. Except, the only transformation visible from the mean streets of South and West Auckland was the transition from bad to worse.

The Covid-19 pandemic was undoubtedly a factor in the deterioration of young and marginalised citizens’ life-worlds. For many the habits of schooling were simply lost. That so many of them remained lost, however, owes a great deal to the fact that so few people came looking for them. An education system that does not crack down hard on truancy sends out a terrible message. It is saying: “We don’t care.” Young people seldom need to be sent that message twice.

Comfortable New Zealand is learning the hard way that its alienated and unwanted young people have some “messages” of their own to deliver.

Earlier this week it was reported that, in the past five years, the number of gang members in New Zealand has doubled from 4,000 to 8,000, and that the recruitment of 18-25 year-olds is up by 75 percent. When the state’s official places of learning breathe a huge sigh of relief that their most disruptive students are no longer in the classroom, does that mean that those truants have given up on being taught? Or, are they simply learning different lessons, from different teachers?

And these lessons are dreadful – made all the more so for having about them the unmistakeable ring of truth. Money is everything. No one cares where it comes from. The Courts can’t cope. If you’re under 17 you won’t go to jail. The Police are powerless. The Law is a joke. Stealing is easy. Don’t worry about getting caught. Always remember who your friends are. Violence works.

Think of the ram-raid as a kind of grim performance art. Like the trashing of the Wawa convenience store in Philadelphia, it offers a terrifying, fun-fair reflection of the hyper-consumerist society we all inhabit. Because, if money and things truly are what define us, then why should our alienated and unwanted youngsters be content to remain undefined, simply for want of cash? If, as they strongly suspect, Comfortable New Zealand has given up on them, then why shouldn’t they make New Zealand uncomfortable?

If rioting is the language of the unheard, then ram-raiding and the trashing of convenience stores is the language of those who no longer believe in talking.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Evening Star of Friday, 21 October 2022.

Worse Crimes.

Retailers’ Worst Nightmare: Bowing to hardliners’ demands that young offenders be incarcerated might produce a short-term fix. It might also satisfy at least some of the public’s thirst for vengeance. But, the introduction of a policy that even its advocates realise is bound to make matters worse, is like sowing dragons’ teeth. One can only look forward to the most terrible harvest.

IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER what the Police statisticians and the criminologists say about crime, all that matters is public perception. Crime statistics the world over may be declining. The young people of today may actually be more law-abiding than their parents and grandparents. But, when people see the consequences of a ram-raid; when they witness hooded figures helping themselves to other people’s property in broad daylight; well, then facts cease to matter. They’re alarmed. They’re angry. They want something done.

The problem, of course, is that those whose responsibility it is to do something, aren’t at all sure what can – or should – be done.

Our footpaths and retail precincts would become very unappealing places if every business was expected to erect sturdy bollards to protect its windows and doors from onrushing motor vehicles. The installation of CCTV cameras on every other lamp-post, a la the United Kingdom, would certainly allow the Police to identify law-abiding citizens easily and quickly. Against perpetrators clad in identical hoodies and wearing sunglasses, however, CCTV may not be quite so effective.

In the words of an old Police sergeant: “Locks are by far the most effective means of keeping honest people out of your house.”

Then there are the hardliners. The people who demand that every person participating in a ram-raid, or armed robbery – no matter how young they are – should be sent to jail.

Except, every person involved in this country’s penal system will object that simply throwing young offenders in jail will not work. Quite apart from the fact that New Zealand has signed up to all manner of international agreements forbidding the incarceration of minors alongside adult offenders, such a policy would simply produce a more sophisticated and highly-skilled criminal class. It would also result in deeply embittered youngsters being released into a society they despise.

Bowing to the hardliners’ demands might produce a short-term fix. It might also satisfy at least some of the public’s thirst for vengeance. But, the introduction of a policy that even its advocates realise is bound to make matters worse, is like sowing dragons’ teeth. One can only look forward to the most terrible harvest.

We will be taught, in the words of the British poet, W.H. Auden, “What all schoolchildren learn/Those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return.”

Cue the bleeding-hearts.

As they see the problem, the youngsters in the hoodies are the product of a society that is quite content to write-off an alarmingly large percentage of its members as hopeless cases. The money and resources needed to give the children of the poor a decent start in life is simply too much for the comfortable two-thirds of society to contemplate. Such solutions as are proposed are inevitably the cheapest ones. Under no circumstances should the nation’s wealth be redistributed to the point where the social forces generating ram-raids and robberies are no longer powerful enough to inflict serious damage.

All of which recalls the Monty Python sketch in which the accused declares: “It’s a fair cop, and society’s to blame.” Only to receive the reply: “That’s alright, we’ll book them too!”

But, how? How do we build the houses needed to ensure that kids have a secure base from which to venture out into the world – or at least to the nearest school? How do we instil in men and boys the fundamental responsibilities of fatherhood? How do we build the social solidarity necessary for criminal acts to be rejected as morally indefensible? How do we stop money continuing to be the measure of all things? How does one slap the cuffs on an entire economic system – a whole society?

Still, there will be those who say: “All very well and good, Mr Bleeding Heart, but how do you explain the absence of this sort of offending in the records of past decades? Back in the days of boys’ homes and borstals and mental hospitals?”

To those who seek to solve the problems of the present with the solutions of the past there is only one place to go, and that is to the Royal Commission of Inquiry Into Historical Abuse In Care. It is there they will discover what becomes of young people deemed worthy of discipline and punishment.

There are worse crimes than ram-raids and robberies.

Much worse crimes.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 30 September 2022.