Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark hosted a three-hour meeting where leaders had gathered to hear community feedback and sought solutions for the city’s crime.
As victims of crime and former perpetrators shared stories with members of the city’s leadership, words such as accountability, discipline, boredom, lack of respect and change were common themes.
About 140 people listened as business owners shared accounts of organised groups of people raiding shops and stealing or multiple daily "trolley runners" attempting to leave stores with trolleys loaded with unpaid items.
All recognised there was no "one-size-fits-all" solution and a multi-pronged approach and community support were needed to implement a solution for the complex problem.
New Zealand police area commander Mike Bowman said police were receiving crime reports but inadequate evidence often hampered consequences being enforced.
Mr Clark and Mr Bowman hoped the city council’s new $2.2 million security camera installations would provide both evidence as well as a crime deterrent.
Testimonies from those who worked within the legal system said sending people to prison was not always an effective tool and alternative consequences needed to be found.
Forty-year Invercargill criminal and family court lawyer Peter Redpath said he believed change was possible but the lack of access to a Southland-based rehabilitation programme was unhelpful.
"I haven’t seen a detention centre of any description that has worked."
"I have not met one criminal ... who has thought about the sentence or consequences ... of what they did before they went out and did what they did.
"Young people, as we know, can’t even process consequences at times.
"It’s a social and economic issue."
The public asked for more community service-focused consequences for young people committing crime.
Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds acknowledged truancy significantly impacted the crime rate and she would be championing change to get pupils back into classrooms or alternative education initiatives.
She also hoped to make "Aura" free for all business owners where retailers and police shared details of retail crimes on a national centralised crime recording database.
The absence of father-figures in homes was a recurrent topic.
Mr Bowman said the lack of an effective father-figure to provide ethical guidance, frequently appeared among crime statistics.
But unless effective wrap-around services were provided for a family when a father was removed from the home, the home often became more unstable as family members struggled to cope.
Programmes offering additional help with developing parenting skills, healing inter-generational trauma and impulse control were also raised during discussions.
Mr Clark believed it was not a lack of support agencies in the community, but those agencies often lacked resources and finances to operate effectively.
Ms Simmonds commended the city’s active initiatives such as XO Church’s youth outreach and "Man-Up" which encouraged men to emotionally heal and establish a healthy identity.
There was a strong message from the public that the nation’s justice system had failed to protect its citizens and multiple stories where victims of crime then became victims of the legal system.
- By Toni McDonald
