By Bill Hickman of RNZ

Campaigners urging the Government to take a hard line on retail crime are saying parents should be held accountable for children too young to face prosecution.

Members of the Dairy and Business Owners Group alongside representatives of the Chinese community presented petitions with more than 40,000 signatures at Parliament today.

Chairman Sunny Kaushal said the Government needed to reform the Crimes Act and strengthen powers of citizen’s arrest.

 “There has to be consequences for 14-year-old ratbags that involves making their parents legally responsible for their actions. Kids in trouble need a circuit breaker. It’s time for red lines before we have another murder in this society,” Kaushal said.

He was referring to the death of dairy worker Janek Patel last year and said the Government needed to take stronger action to prevent a similar tragedy.

Patel’s father and brother-in-law travelled to Wellington to attend the presentation of the petitions.

Speaking for the family, Manish Thakkar of the Waikato Retailers Group said Patel’s death had left a void that would never be filled.

 “Every day they are in trauma, they are suffering. But they want to pass on the message that it shouldn’t happen to anyone else. The Government should take some strong action instead of giving excuses,” Thakkar said.

National Party police spokesman Mark Mitchell received the petition.

The repeal of the three strikes law and the drive to reduce the prison roster had fuelled a massive increase in violent crime, he said.

“Our retail and shop owners are fatigued, they are over it. They’re busy building cages about themselves, we’ve got shops bristling with fog cannons and bollards outside but the real drivers of crime are going unaddressed,” Mitchell said.

Police Minister Ginny Andersen acknowledged the period since the Covid-19 pandemic had been the toughest time the country had seen for retail crime.

Nearly $35 million was being spent to support security measures for retailers and the Government was committed to resourcing frontline police, Andersen said.

“I’ve met with many of [the] business community and I feel that hurt, I feel that fear. We’ll continue to resource retail owners to be safe and we’ll continue to resource police to bring these offenders to account.”

Anderson said providing retailers with fog cannons was not ideal but they were effective at deterring offenders.

“For now, if that works to keep people safe in their business then I’m pleased to see that rolled out further.”