John MacDonald: Retail crime statistics don't tell the whole story

Have you ever nicked anything from a shop before?

The reason I ask, is this news out today about retail crime going through the roof. Let’s start with the numbers, which have been obtained and released by the National Party.

Overall, the rate of retail crime increased last year by 39 percent.

Break that down to a day-by-day number, and every day last year the police received nearly 300 calls about stuff being nicked from shops and other retail outlets.

The exact average number is 292.

When I first heard these numbers, I’ll be honest, I thought to myself ‘is that all?’.

When I heard National’s Mark Mitchell on Newstalk ZB I felt like I was just listening to another politician telling me I should be angry about something.

But then I thought beyond the numbers, and knew that they would just be the tip of the iceberg - so to speak.

Because, chances are, most of those 292 calls made to the police every day last year were about real serious stuff.

Things like what we’ve seen on the news about ram raids, and that shocking raid on the Michael Hill jewellery store up north. Because, unless there was something major like that going on, why would you bother calling the police?

This is not me beating up on the police, by the way. It’s just how it is. How many times have we heard retailers saying they call the police but there’s no response - for the simple fact that the police are just overwhelmed.

So, unless something life-threatening is going on, the police just can’t help anymore. But let’s just dig into those numbers a little bit more.

Last year, on average, there were 292 calls to police reporting cases of retail crime every day.

That’s a call to police every five minutes, 24-hours a day, seven-days-a-week.

That is a crazy statistic. But, like I say, initially it didn’t shock me. For the simple reason, that it wasn’t as high as I would have expected. Because you talk to any retailer and they’ll tell you this stuff is rife.

I’ve seen it happening with my own eyes. People just walking into convenience stores all the time and helping themselves to stuff.

And the staff just shrug their shoulders and try not to put themselves at-risk or in danger. They call the police - but there’s nothing they can do. Well, they used to call the police.

Which is why the shocking thing - for me anyway - about these numbers released by National, is that even with a retail crime being reported every five minutes, every hour of the day, every day last year - that is just the start.

And there will be truckloads of offences happening, where retailers just shrug their shoulders and do what they can to keep going. Which is the tragedy in all of this.

Retailers around New Zealand seem to have been beaten into submission by these muppets who think they can just walk into a shop and help themselves.

And the muppets do it, because they know that, most of the time, they’ll get away with it.

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