MARK CROPP IS A DRONGO. BUT WE MADE THE DRONGO
The sad, strange and depressing tale of Mark Cropp.
Mark Cropp is a lad from Oamaru who was jailed for 2 years in 2015. He was 17. His crime was pulling a knife on a tourist who pulled out of buying marijuana off him. The fact was Mark Cropp had no marijuana to sell but when the tourist twigged, Cropp attacked. Bad egg.
The reason he was ripping people off was because his girlfriend was pregnant. He needed money. He was a 17 year old Dad to be.
Mark Cropp was sent to prison in Otago. Meanwhile his girlfriend gave birth to a child. A child who is already in state care.
Mark Cropp was fair game for some of the hard men behind bars. He was getting done over. So to escape the bullying he made a statement. Getting drunk on homebrew he got his cellmate to spend a night tattooing half his face with the word Devest8. It's his street name. The tattoo covers his face like a beard. It's very, very confronting. There’s nothing aesthetic about it. It’s an affront.
Now 19 and out of jail he wants to go straight, get a job, get his child back from state care and look after his girlfriend. Good on him. But no-one is giving him a job. It's that tattoo. So he's gone public on a job seeking Facebook page asking for work. He's sick of being on the dole and living in emergency accomodation. He lives in an Auckland campground.
So the question is would or should an employer employ him with this god-awful tattoo on his face? Why not? We all make mistakes. He's young. He has the ability to turn his life around. He wants to work. So would I employ him?
I'm afraid my answer is no. Corrections provide services to remove tattoos. He's been offered the services twice. He turned them down. He says the tattoo is who he is. No mate. It's not. Anyone who can do such violence to his own face is not a fit in society. Just get it removed. You'll never regret it. It's proof he hasn't really moved on.
Mark Cropp has had a life of unbelievable chaos and anarchy and I don't think anyone believes that he's woken up one morning and changed.
But my real concern is that we helped create this messed up man child. He's been in state care since he was 6. He was kicked out of school aged 11. He says "Part of the reason why I am who I am is that I grew up without my parents, I grew up with drugs and alcohol around, and became a criminal.”
We put him into state care to keep him away from those influences and the care we offered failed. We failed. We helped to make the man. The drongo. The damaged goods. The criminal.
Recently a petition was presented to parliament. 100 former wards of the state gathered in Wellington to call for a full government inquiry into the abuse they suffered while in state care. The sort of abuse Mark Cropp must have suffered.
Mark Cropp is another example of a youngster taken into state care and then further destroyed. The new Ministry for Vulnerable Children has a big job to fix their past failings. Tragically, their first job will be fixing Mark Cropp’s child.
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