So? We all pay taxes, in return for which we are entitled to expect to be served by the police. Why should we pay again to fund a local system of policing, however effective it has proved to be? The answer to that lies in how deep we are being asked to dig.
The lowest level of support needed to ensure TSM survives is $5 plus GST a week. Some might well baulk at the principle of paying more for an additional service, but they can hardly claim it's not affordable. And which would they prefer? A very real risk that their businesses (or homes) will be burgled or damaged on a regular basis, or stumping up with $5 a week to support an initiative that demonstrably offers genuine protection?
Some businesses in Kaitaia, and some individuals, are supporting TSM, and so are contributing not only to a significant reduction in crime but are helping to employ seven formerly unemployed people. If the initiative reaches its potential there will be more jobs and even less crime. The problem is that if the town doesn't support it, TSM is not going to stutter along, not quite achieving what it's capable of but helping to make Kaitaia a safer place. Without support it will fold. It will be just another idea that showed promise but didn't go anywhere.
The Northland Age doesn't know who's supporting TSM and who isn't. Those who called the meeting in 2013 might well be on its books. They certainly should be. But once again some people in Kaitaia are displaying an all too common attitude, that others can be counted on to pay for something that benefits them whether they support it or not. If Shop A is paying for someone to monitor the town's CCTV cameras and dispatching someone to deal with behaviour that is clearly criminal, or has the potential to be criminal, then Shop B will be covered too, won't it?
The writer suspects that if a camera monitor sees someone preparing to break into Shop B they will dispatch a patrol without first checking to see if that business is making a contribution, but they would be entitled to do so. No one expects another person's personal insurance to cover them in the event of their being burgled, and this is just another form of insurance. Until now it has covered the freeloaders as well as those who see what it can do, and is doing, and are happy to make the nominal contribution needed to ensure it continues.
No one has any illusions about how hard it is for many of Kaitaia's business people to make a crust these days, but supporting TSM could even have the potential to reduce insurance premiums. It would certainly be worth asking. More fundamentally though, the town has a role to play in reducing crime, beyond calling the occasional meeting to tell the cops they're useless. That responsibility also applies to the town's corporate citizens and government departments, including WINZ, which has lost seven of its clients to full-time paid employment.
TSM represents a golden opportunity for the police and the community to work together for the proven benefit of the town, and that opportunity will be lost if the town doesn't do its bit.
Judge Greg Davis raised the same principle last week when he conceded that the Kaitaia District Court seemed ("unfortunately and embarrassingly") powerless to deter some recidivist drink drivers from continuing to offend. He was led to that conclusion by the fact that seven of the 15 people he sentenced on Thursday had been convicted of drink driving for the third or subsequent time. One of them, with more than three times the legal alcohol limit aboard, drove through an intersection stop sign at around 100km/h, without even slowing down.
Judge Davis adopted a new tack on Thursday, inviting the Northland Age to publicly shame these people. The Age has long been doing that, and has no intention of desisting, but he went further, inviting it to photograph recidivist offenders in the dock and "plaster" their images over the front page, so everyone will know who they are.
Public shaming, if that's what court reporting is, has always been an integral part of the justice system. This is not something that is universally understood. This newspaper has been asked in the past (and as recently as Sunday) why it covers the court, how it is that offenders can be publicly identified without first asking their permission, and why their right to privacy is ignored. Last week a lawyer asked that her drink-driving client not be named because she had children, and they would be embarrassed.
That's the whole point. If the threat of punishment by the court doesn't deter people, perhaps the threat of public exposure will, quite apart from the right of law-abiding members of any community to know the thieves, thugs, drug dealers and drunk drivers among them. If lifting the potential for public opprobrium to another level will deter some people from drink driving, this newspaper has an obligation to do that.
Judge Davis and the police are singing from the same song sheet here. Both recognise that their role in curbing criminal behaviour will only be as effective as it possibly can be with the active support of the community they are serving. In the case of drink driving, this newspaper clearly has a role to play. In the case of putting burglars out of business, it's down to the people who will benefit to make some small contribution.
Three years ago Kaitaia asked the police to do something about the burglars that were running rampant. They have done something. And it's working. If Kaitaia wants to see that continue, it knows what it has to do. The alternative is to continue paying increasingly expensive insurance premiums, if anyone is prepared to insure them, and to call another meeting at the fire station. Kaitaia asked for TSM; now it has to decide if it really does want it.
