February 26, 2025 • 5 mins
Safety concerns are top of a mind for one retail representative, at news the Government is proposing to loosen citizen arrest laws.
The measure is being pitched as a remedy for retail crime, by allowing workers and the public to detain suspected thieves with "reasonable force".
But Retail NZ Chief Executive Carolyn Young told Andrew Dickens it's dangerous, especially when many retailers are so young.
Young says they fear it will create situations where offenders will arm themselves more out of fear of being restrained.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
The big story yesterday was the announcement of citizens arrests,
and we thought retailers would love them. But a lot
of retailers came out and they did not seem to
be on board with the government's proposed changes to the
citizen arrest laws. You can still do it now, but
it's pretty pretty difficult. And now the new proposal is
to allow citizens to intervene and stop any crimes act
offense at any time of the day and allowing them
(00:22):
to detain alleged offenders and to use restraints. So retailers
that came out yesterday and they were concerned that this
will end up actually increasing crime and putting staff at risk.
And so I'm joined now by Retail New Zealand Chief
executive Carolyn young Heller.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Carolyn, whatever, how are you this morning?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I'm very well, what's your problem with it?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Look, the challenge was this is that retailers are not
trained to deal with law enforcement issues, which is what
we're talking about. When you've most or any training that
you never see around retail from specialist training providers that
are always talking about how you remain harm, you don't
(01:01):
you don't engage in with inwardly with the alleged offenders
in your store. You don't physically engage with them. You
keep a safe distance. You try to get the nails
the store as soon as possible. What retailers want to
be able to do is to be able to legally
be able to ask to get the stop back. All
of our members have told us they don't want to
(01:22):
be able to do that in a physical way. They
want to be able to get people out of their
premises and they want to be able to trespass them
with the law that's got some teeth in it, so
that they won't be able to return to their store
again and create harm. Actually physically engaging with something it
is not something that retailers do. You know, it's an
extremely dangerous thing. You don't know is somebody on medication?
(01:43):
Are they on drugs? Do they have a hidden weapon.
A lot of retail workers are quite young. You know
a lot of people that work on shop tools. Many
of us have had our first jobs in retail. You
don't have the life experience or the knowledge around how
you want to agent that sort of space, and we
fear that it will create a situation where if an
(02:06):
offender thinks that they might be a physically approached and
restraint that they will come and armed with more expansive weapons.
We'll see more knives or their guns, all of those
sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
But this is really actually I caught it an announcement
of an announcement. Because this is an announcement of a proposal.
It was there needed to be a lot more clarification
about what is meant by detaining and what is meant
by using restraints, in fact, what is meant by the
entire law. So obviously it's going to Select Committee. Obviously
it's going to be debated, So you're going to have
the opportunity to go there and eyeball Justice Minister Paul
Goldsmith and make these changes, don't you.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
We'll certainly be making a strong submission about this, and
we know that in legislation and case law already there's
you know, it's already defined what a reasonable force looks like.
And when you're talking about restraints, we know that they're
talking about mechanical restraints, so you're talking about handcuffs and
or something like cable ties and things like that, So
(03:04):
you know, we know a lot about what they're already
talking about and you know, retail just isn't set up
to be detaining offenders in store.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, and one of the parties that came out and
weren't full bore into it was supermarkets, which we everyone
was a bit surprised at because we've all seen people
waltz out at supermarkets with stuff. But as they said,
they've already got their security guards, They've already got all
this the same concerns that you have about the whole process.
So you know, the point is, shouldn't retailers be working
(03:36):
together to actually sort themselves out without the help of
the government.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
So we are absolutely working together around what we need
to do to prevent retail crime, and our focus is
on prevention and keeping people safe. Every business has to
comply to the health and safety regulations, and if you're
putting staff potentially in harm's way by having to engage
with an alleged defender in store, then you're not going
to be able to come live with heart and safety regulation.
So you're going to be in lots of trouble with
(04:03):
the labored department. So, you know, preventive measures like facial
recognition technology where you can you're identifying prior offenders in
your store and ensuring that they don't come in store
really ways to keep staff and customers safe. We know
that in retail and specifically if you're thinking about social markets,
between thirty five and fifty percent of offenders are recipibus offenders,
(04:27):
so they're coming back time and time again. Facial recognition
can stop them coming in the door. So the use
of technology moving forward, it's really important.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Carolyn, I thank you so much. Carolyn Young is the
Retail New Zealand chief executive and yes she does have
a mandate to speak on behalf of retailers and a
Texas says the minister clearly said yesterday the citizen arrest
law was for dairy owners. Yes, but there was no
detail on how it would actually work. And he said that,
he said, we're about to talk about this, so we're
talking about it.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
to News Talks. It'd be from five am weekdays, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
All right.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
The big story yesterday was the announcement of citizens arrests,
and we thought retailers would love them. But a lot
of retailers came out and they did not seem to
be on board with the government's proposed changes to the
citizen arrest laws. You can still do it now, but
it's pretty pretty difficult. And now the new proposal is
to allow citizens to intervene and stop any crimes act
offense at any time of the day and allowing them
(00:22):
to detain alleged offenders and to use restraints. So retailers
that came out yesterday and they were concerned that this
will end up actually increasing crime and putting staff at risk.
And so I'm joined now by Retail New Zealand Chief
executive Carolyn young Heller.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Carolyn, whatever, how are you this morning?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I'm very well, what's your problem with it?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Look, the challenge was this is that retailers are not
trained to deal with law enforcement issues, which is what
we're talking about. When you've most or any training that
you never see around retail from specialist training providers that
are always talking about how you remain harm, you don't
(01:01):
you don't engage in with inwardly with the alleged offenders
in your store. You don't physically engage with them. You
keep a safe distance. You try to get the nails
the store as soon as possible. What retailers want to
be able to do is to be able to legally
be able to ask to get the stop back. All
of our members have told us they don't want to
(01:22):
be able to do that in a physical way. They
want to be able to get people out of their
premises and they want to be able to trespass them
with the law that's got some teeth in it, so
that they won't be able to return to their store
again and create harm. Actually physically engaging with something it
is not something that retailers do. You know, it's an
extremely dangerous thing. You don't know is somebody on medication?
(01:43):
Are they on drugs? Do they have a hidden weapon.
A lot of retail workers are quite young. You know
a lot of people that work on shop tools. Many
of us have had our first jobs in retail. You
don't have the life experience or the knowledge around how
you want to agent that sort of space, and we
fear that it will create a situation where if an
(02:06):
offender thinks that they might be a physically approached and
restraint that they will come and armed with more expansive weapons.
We'll see more knives or their guns, all of those
sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
But this is really actually I caught it an announcement
of an announcement. Because this is an announcement of a proposal.
It was there needed to be a lot more clarification
about what is meant by detaining and what is meant
by using restraints, in fact, what is meant by the
entire law. So obviously it's going to Select Committee. Obviously
it's going to be debated, So you're going to have
the opportunity to go there and eyeball Justice Minister Paul
Goldsmith and make these changes, don't you.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
We'll certainly be making a strong submission about this, and
we know that in legislation and case law already there's
you know, it's already defined what a reasonable force looks like.
And when you're talking about restraints, we know that they're
talking about mechanical restraints, so you're talking about handcuffs and
or something like cable ties and things like that, So
(03:04):
you know, we know a lot about what they're already
talking about and you know, retail just isn't set up
to be detaining offenders in store.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, and one of the parties that came out and
weren't full bore into it was supermarkets, which we everyone
was a bit surprised at because we've all seen people
waltz out at supermarkets with stuff. But as they said,
they've already got their security guards, They've already got all
this the same concerns that you have about the whole process.
So you know, the point is, shouldn't retailers be working
(03:36):
together to actually sort themselves out without the help of
the government.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
So we are absolutely working together around what we need
to do to prevent retail crime, and our focus is
on prevention and keeping people safe. Every business has to
comply to the health and safety regulations, and if you're
putting staff potentially in harm's way by having to engage
with an alleged defender in store, then you're not going
to be able to come live with heart and safety regulation.
So you're going to be in lots of trouble with
(04:03):
the labored department. So, you know, preventive measures like facial
recognition technology where you can you're identifying prior offenders in
your store and ensuring that they don't come in store
really ways to keep staff and customers safe. We know
that in retail and specifically if you're thinking about social markets,
between thirty five and fifty percent of offenders are recipibus offenders,
(04:27):
so they're coming back time and time again. Facial recognition
can stop them coming in the door. So the use
of technology moving forward, it's really important.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Carolyn, I thank you so much. Carolyn Young is the
Retail New Zealand chief executive and yes she does have
a mandate to speak on behalf of retailers and a
Texas says the minister clearly said yesterday the citizen arrest
law was for dairy owners. Yes, but there was no
detail on how it would actually work. And he said that,
he said, we're about to talk about this, so we're
talking about it.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
to News Talks. It'd be from five am weekdays, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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