I am surprised by the narrow focus of Jarrod Gilbert's recently published PHD research, "Patched: The History of Gangs in New Zealand".
I question why he failed to include our nation's most notorious "gang" element, that of the White Collar Criminal? They are a recognised sector in NZ society whoannually cause more devastation and harm than any other, including patched gang members, who are babes by comparison.
They maim and defile a significant percentage of our population every year and are responsible, when the total impact to society is tallied up, to over one hundred times more cost than all other crime combined. I suggest Mr Gilbert, despite his rhetoric, took the easy option of researching gangs in Maori communities rather than trying to ingratiate himself into the culture of the secretive, mainly non-Maori, WCC families.
Whereas Mr Gilbert makes the point that the Maori gang members in his book are lowly educated one wonders whether that is really such a negative when research on the gangs of White Collar Criminals tells us they are characterised as being highly educated. Additionally he talks about the "hard' upbringings that many patched Maori gang members endured, one contemplates then, considering their relatively minor impact on the overall crime scene (by comparison), whether their more illustrious counterparts in the higher echelons of society may have benefited from similar parental guidance.
This critique does not seek to condone criminal behaviour which we all know does stem from many of the easily identifiable patched gangs who operate at a level one or two notches up from Joe Public.
However, the White Collar Criminals are the ones who cause most of the mayhem in NZ, and who are largely responsible for manipulating patched gang criminality, and yet are conspicuous by their absence in statistical crime indicators and social commentary.
