KEY POINTS:
Most serial burglars accept some jail time as an occupational hazard. They stash the goods, do their 18 months, they come out and resume their lives as before. It seems that only the love of a good woman or old age will persuade burglars to give up their
criminal lifestyle.
I would have thought that gunshot wounds, truncheon bruises and dog bites would all be accepted as occupational hazards as well. You certainly wouldn't want to be a German Shepherd's mid-morning snack but, surely, if you are going to break into people's homes, steal their stuff and resist arrest, that's the risk you take.
Casey Voges is a burglar. He's spent 12 years of his life behind bars in Australia and New Zealand for burglary and drug use and, given that he's only 29, that's a considerable chunk of his life that he's wasted in prison.
He lost a considerable chunk of his ear a couple of years ago when he resisted arrest and a police dog acted instinctively to stop him. Now Voges wants reconstruction surgery so he doesn't have to spend the rest of his life wandering around doing an imitation of a Dutch painter. He says he's sick of his life of crime and wants to turn his life round. Right. Sure. Best of British luck and all that.
But his victims say New Zealand taxpayers shouldn't have to fork out $20,000 to restore Voges to his former glory.
Understandably bitter after the shock of coming home to find an intruder in their house, they say Voges should pay for the cosmetic surgery himself. I wouldn't go that far - but then it wasn't my house he burgled. There are some people - mainly the robbers - who think burglary is a victimless crime. They steal your stuff, insurance pays you back, they get money to feed their drug habit or buy their car, local retailers get your business when you replace your gear: win/win.
Except, as anyone who's been burgled will tell you, thieves don't just take material possessions. They take your peace of mind. They violate your sanctuary and it takes a long time to feel clean in your own home.
Children, especially, worry that the bad men are going to come back and when thieves aren't caught, as they so often aren't, you're left with impotent fury coursing through your veins. Which can't be good for you. So we're all agreed that burglars are loathsome lowlifes.
However, while I don't think they should be denied access to ACC-funded surgery, I do think they should go to the back of the line. Doctors and surgeons have to make judgment calls all the time when it comes to deciding how finite resources are distributed. Surely one of the litmus tests should be that if injuries have been sustained in the course of committing a crime, the crims are at the bottom of any plastic surgeon's operating list. Remember that case of the poor woman in Northland, who lost her nose through cancer? She had been waiting months for reconstructive surgery and was virtually a prisoner in her own home as she was too self conscious to leave the house. She was outraged to discover a P-lab cook, who'd blown himself up when he got the recipe wrong, had bumped her off the operating schedule. As was I.
I'd love to know what's happened to her and whether she's finally got the surgery she so desperately needed. When cancer patients and children born with abnormalities and every other law-abiding person who requires cosmetic surgery have had their ops done, then sure. Pretty up the criminals. Shame you can't operate to correct their ugly and abnormal behaviour.