Paul Goldsmith: Justice Minister on the Government proposing loosening restrictions on citizen's arrests

The Government hopes criminals will be deterred as it proposes loosening restrictions on citizen's arrests.

It would mean businesses could arrest and detain people stealing at any hour, and use reasonable force.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says this doesn't mean people can't tackle others or force them to the ground - but they will be able to directly intervene.

"The definition of reasonable force is something that the courts will work their way through - but yes, holding on to somebody's arm and stopping them from getting away is reasonable." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The government's tackling retail crime quite literally, making laws more
favorable for people, making citizens arrests. Changes would allow you
to intervene and stop any crimes act defense at any
time of day, while also removing the value of the
goods needing to be more than one thousand dollars. This
is for retail crime. Paul Goldsmith's Justice Minister, he's with me,

(00:21):
High Minister, Hello, how are you good? Thank you? How
exactly are we can we tackle people? How does it?
What are we allowed to do?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well? Obviously we've got to pass the legislation first, So
these are proposals that we're going to we're working into
legislation and that would go after seat committee. So the
rules haven't changed today. We're announcing some proposals. And the
concern is, of course that there are too many instances
of people just walking away from shomps without paying and

(00:57):
a real sense of an inability to do anything about it,
and so reasonable force. So tackling somebody is not necessarily
reasonable force, but just stopping them from walking away with
gear might be. And so those are the sorts of
things that we're thinking of.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Right, so you could grab under your proposal you could
grab someone by the arm to hold them, but you couldn't.
You couldn't get them to the ground and hold them
on the ground.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Is that what you're thinking, Well, yeah, well the definition
of reasonable force is something that the courts have worked
their way through. But yes, holding on to somebody and
stopping them from getting away and.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Restraint the restraints that you can use. Does that mean
you can tie somebody up until the police arrive.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, potentially, if that's required and if the circumstances required,
and that the critical thing first is that the expanding
the opportunity. At the moment, it's very highly restricted. It's
got to you know, it's got to be over three
year sentence for it, for it for a crime, it's
got to be at night. And so that all means

(01:59):
that there are very few opportunities when people can do this.
We're wanting to expand that, but if you do, you've
got to bring the police immediately and do what the
police tell you to do. So it's not a sort
of an open ended thing. But you know, what are
we worried about. We're worried about retail crime and we've
got to come up with some new ways to deal
with is.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
This actually going to be a revolutionary way that deals
with the problem. I know you say there's more to come,
but this is you've been in government now for how
long have you been in government? A year and a
half and this is your first big one from this
working group, and actually you've got most retailers saying they're
not going to use it.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, first thing would be to say, you know, as
we did last year. Last year, we were focusing on
bringing about three strikes with sentencing law which is going
to be pasted next week, which is around reducing the
ability of judges to massively reduce prison sentences when people
are convicted of serious crimes. Then we've given all the
police the extra powers to deal with the gangs because

(02:54):
the focus is on reducing the victims of crime. So
we've been working away through a stuff and now we're
on to a crime. We set them up late late
last year and they're coming up with ideas and we've
got more to come. So's we're busy. We've got a
lot going on.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Okay, but you accept that most retailers won't use this one.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
I think there's a this is one that is of
particular interest to the small dairies of people on their own,
their own businesses wanting to have some means of dealing
with people coming in and dealing with this sort of stuff.
That the larger corporates may have a different focus. They're
probably looking more at facial recognition and they've got other

(03:31):
things that they can focus on. But there's no one
sort of one type of retailer. There's lots of different
interests and fashions and so we're still going to work
our way through them all carefully.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
All Right, good on youre, Paul. Thanks very much for
your time, Paul Goldsmith, the Justice Minister.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
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Speaker 1 (03:47):
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