Letters to the editor: Change at grassroots level needed to address crime

No harsher punishment, counselling, boot camps or extra policing will change crime statistics, a reader believes. Photo / NZME

OPINION

I see, without surprise, that an Auckland jewellery store suffered its fifth raid and another service station was broken into.

Minimising consequences will always allow the worst in folks to be realised and we’ve successfully done that over the last few years.

If parenting is reduced to simply food and shelter, and morality, respect and integrity are not modelled and instilled, then it’s pretty hard to see great future outcomes. The police and courts are really just an ambulance and while prison sentences can be seen to be unduly harsh, even draconian, they provide a relief to the public and a shock to the miscreant.

No harsher punishment, no counselling, boot camps or extra policing will change these statistics majorly until a fundament change at grassroots level happens - that is, in the home. Sadly it’s perhaps an unobtainable goal now.

John Williams

Ngongotahā

Very irate drivers

Thank you for your article about the major roadworks at the SH30/33 Te Ngae junction (News, June 9).

I live 1km from the site and the traffic build-up at the weekend is really bad. We have had visitors come to our place from the city, and it has taken them between 45 minutes and one hour 10 minutes after joining the queue, to get to the stop/go point.

A relative tried to visit and gave up after an hour and she commented that there were some very irate drivers. Many have difficulty turning into our driveway, as some drivers ignore their signal for up to five minutes.

Equally, it can be a while before a driver lets them into the queue to return to town.

I go to work in the morning and the time it takes can be up to an hour – depending on traffic flow. That’s crazy, as it usually takes me less than 20 minutes.

It is as bad as the commute time when the Tarawera Rd roundabout was changed to traffic lights, resulting in months of unavoidable stress crawling in long queues and being late for work and appointments.

Surely Waka Kotahi can think of a more effective way of traffic management?

Angela Betterton-Quaife

Rotorua

Nail hit on head

In reply to John Gascoigne’s comments (Opinion, May 25), unfortunately he hit it on the nail.

He wrote that New Zealand has become an increasingly undisciplined, dysfunctional multi-cultural population entirely lacking any sense of national purpose or common interest except sport.

Gascoigne also wrote that irrespective of whichever party or parties are in power, the political will to implement the changes required to reverse the decline does not appear to exist.

In my view, it’s not good enough for Prime Minister Chris Hipkins to sympathise that the Titirangi Lotto and Post Shop raids were unacceptable - he has the power to alleviate the problem.

P Nicholson

Rotorua

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