Police don't prevent crime, it's time we changed the conversation

If we want to prevent crime, and stop more victims from being created, than we need to get smart about solutions.

Over the last 12 months there has been growing concern about crime, and increasing calls for the Government to do more to prevent crime from occurring.

These calls have been largely driven by concerns regarding the increase and visibility of Ram Raids, and for some the reality of young people being involved in this form of crime has been particularly shocking.

A common public response to concerns around crime, specifically youth crime, is to call for our political leaders to increase policing. It pays to point out that this focus on increased policing as a solution to crime within our communities is often intensified leading up to election year.

It also should be mentioned, that the perception that youth crime is on the increase is not backed up by the data. The reality is much more positive, with youth crime steadily trending down for several years now.

The problem with this focus on increasing police budgets in response to perceived increases in crime, is that we're investing in fences at the wrong end of the cliff. Instead of putting guard rails at the top, we're placing them at the bottom.

Police do not prevent crime.

Not really. Their primary job is to enforce the law, which means they largely come in after a crime has been committed.

More police may mean more people arrested, and perhaps even more convictions, but it doesn't prevent victims from being created.

More police won't stop shops being ram raided, they won’t return that precious family item that was stolen and destroyed, or heal the trauma of someone who has suffered from an assault.

Investing in police won't solve crime.

No, if we actually care about victims, if we truly want to end the cycle of victimization, then we need to get serious about crime prevention. That means we need to take a serious look at the drivers of crime and respond appropriately.

It is not an opinion to say that poverty, disabilities, mental illness, trauma, and increasing inequality and social exclusion all play a role in driving people to become engaged in crime. This is all well documented, and largely accepted.

Eradicating poverty, ensuring whānau have access to safe and stable housing, building a society where everyone has access to health care and mental health services, this is all crime prevention.

So, in light of what we know, it's important we respond to the evidence, demanding that our politicians take crime prevention seriously and instead of investing further in policing, focus their intention on addressing these larger structural issues.

I get that these issues are complex, and it is correct to say that they cannot be solved in one election cycle. But, there is no silver bullet to solving the complex challenges our communities are facing.

And if we are going to actually see change in our communities, than we are going to have to all work together, regardless of what political colours we wear.

It's election year.

Which means most parties will be tempted to play the "I'll buy more police than the other guy" game. But, buying more police won't solve the challenges our community is facing.

If we want safer communities, we need to invest in our communities.

We need to invest in community solutions, in ending poverty, in ensuring safe and stable housing for whānau, in making health care and mental health services accessible for all of us.

We also need our elected representatives to work together, to find common ground, to collaborate on policy that can last longer than a three-year term. There are preventative solutions that fit within that shared space our politicians collectively stand on.

Though there is bound to be ideological differences in some areas, I do not accept that there is not enough common ground for our Parliament to implement policy that can actually make significant change for our communities.

For example, we know that for a group of young people who end up repeatedly offending, one key barrier for change is extreme poverty and the reality that they are experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity.

Legislation to prevent young people from being transitioned from the care and justice system into homelessness, would ensure that the state took seriously its responsibilities for young people in their care, and planned for - and provided - housing solutions for these young people.

Another solution is looking at how we resource our communities to practice early intervention.

We know that if a young person has had a Report of Concern made about them before the age of 5, that they are more likely to become involved in crime as a child, and again as a teen.

We also know that our communities often know the young people who will become involved in crime, long before they do. So, the question than is how does our Government empower communities, invest in iwi, strengthen the resources we have within our communities to respond appropriately?

There are solutions to these questions, but it will take decisive leadership, and collaboration across the house, to refuse to make crime prevention a political pinata and instead get serious about solutions.  

We can do so much more than we are doing to prevent crime. Sadly, we too often get distracted by the promise of increased policing that we fail to focus on real solutions and thus fail to respond adequately.

We need to change the conversation. If we want to see significant change, then we need to demonstrate to our elected representatives that this issue is too important to us, to serious, to be partisan.

We need to demand real solutions. Solutions that don't wait for victims to be created, before we act. Solutions that take seriously the drivers of crime, and deal with the root causes, rather than waiting for people to be hurt before we do something.

Because, preventing crime requires evidence-based responses, not hysteria filled reactions.

If we want change, we need to lay the rhetoric aside, and get a whole lot smarter.

A.J. Hendry is a Laidlaw College graduate, and a Youth Development Worker and housing advocate, working in the Youth Housing and Homelessness space. He leads a service supporting rangatahi experiencing homelessness and is also an advocate working collectively to end youth homelessness in Aotearoa. He is also the curator and creator of When Lambs Are Silent. 

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