Merepeka Raukawa-Tait: Low-level crimes are never low-level to the victims

So-called low-level crime is anything but, Merepeka Raukawa-Tait writes. Photo / Jacob Ammentorp Lund

I was in a bakery waiting to be served this week. In front of me was a young woman, I would guess in her mid-30s. She was nicely turned out, wearing a pastel-coloured coat. I particularly noticed her makeup, it was flawless. She would easily turn heads. Standing beside her in my walking gear and cap, the contrast made me smile. She stepped to the side when she finished buying her two pies and I started to tell the shop owner behind the counter what I wanted to buy.

The next minute the owner called out to the woman, about to walk out of the shop, to stop. Quick as a flash the owner ran to the door and disappeared. A few minutes later she reappeared with a broad grin on her face, holding up a mobile phone. It appears the nicely turned-out woman had lifted the phone off the counter beside the till. I never saw her take it, never saw any movement in fact, although she did stand and hover to the side for a few minutes after she paid. My sister and I looked at each other in disbelief.

It happened so quickly, I suppose these things usually do. The owner told me the phone belonged to one of her regular customers who had left it behind earlier in the morning. She wanted to return it to her and had left it sitting on the counter near the till. I said her customer would be grateful for its return. Losing or having your phone stolen is a damn inconvenience.

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The shop owner isn’t a big woman but she didn’t hesitate to spring into action. I guess she didn’t think there could have been a friend waiting outside who could easily have whacked her when she demanded the return of the phone.

I asked her how the woman reacted. She said she kept walking at first but when the shop owner kept following her calling out, “Stop thief”, she turned abruptly, handed over the phone and nonchalantly walked off. I think there was an element of risk to the shop owner. You never know how people will react when cornered. All praise to her, she wasn’t going to let the matter go.

To me, this incident highlights:

1) Crimes are often opportunistic. The customer would not have known there was a phone in full view, ready to be lifted by her when she entered the bakery. It was there for the taking.

2) “Clothes may make the man,” or in this case woman, but they can just as easily and conveniently hide an imposter.

3) Attempted theft is in my books still a crime. Stealing a phone may be seen as a low-level crime but success breeds success. Bigger and better spoils will be next on the horizon for the thief.

All crimes have victims. Sometimes irreplaceable treasures are stolen and property damaged that has taken years of hard work and savings to acquire. Sometimes people are harmed, injured and scarred for life. There are tragedies too. The impacts of crime on victims are often minimised, especially when it is called low-level crime where some people are of the view that no one was injured, the property can be replaced, the victim will get over it and time heals.

Low-level crimes are never low-level to the victims. Criminals don’t hit the big time right at the start. They work their way up.

The shop owner might not know it but I think what she did took nerve. She could just as easily have said, “Oh well, that’s what we have to put up with these days”.

She is made of the stuff this country needs, in big doses.

Merepeka Raukawa-Tait has worked in the private, public and non-profit sectors. Today she writes, broadcasts and is a regular social issues commentator on TV. Of Te Arawa, Merepeka believes fearless advocacy for equity and equality has the potential to change lives.