We Get What We Pay For

PBG--Pretty But Gangster

Nearly every day we hear or read  a story like this:

A vehicle was carjacked during a police chase overnight that stretched from Auckland's North Shore to the Waikato.  Police said at 12.25am officers attempted to stop a fleeing vehicle on Lake Rd, Devonport.   The pursuit was abandoned and the driver continued heading south on the Southern Motorway at high speed.  Police used spikes at Bombay and the vehicle stopped a short distance later.  The driver made a dash for freedom taking a second vehicle at gunpoint.  ONE News reported the man was eating raw methamphetamine during the chase and took a person hostage during the carjacking. [NZ Herald]

Eventually the "perp" was apprehended in the Waikato.  We have seen an increasing number of flights-by-vehicle where, under police rules, the chase has had to be abandoned.  In the case above, doubtless fixed cameras and/or the police helicopter would have tracked the fleeing driver and police would have intercepted the perp rather than chased him.

But the more general problem remains.  The widespread awareness that police chases will almost certainly be abandoned has had the perverse incentive of encouraging vehicular flight.

More than 1000 people who taunt police with car chases are getting away with it – and teens involved are boasting about their antics online.  New figures obtained under the Official Information Act reveal 1206 pursuits in 2015 ended with the fleeing driver escaping before police could identify them - an increase of 39 per cent in four years. [Stuff]

Police pursuits became severely restricted and more likely to be called off, the more aggressive the fleeing drivers were, due to some high profile crashes of fleeing vehicles where uninvolved third parties were injured or killed.  In other words, police pursuits were putting the public at risk.  Mind you, the current policy is not reducing that risk because fugitives have an incentive to drive as recklessly as possible to ensure that the police chase is called off.

Police abandoned 1580 pursuits in the past year.  The unintended consequence of this is that young people are stealing cars and driving so as to be chased by the police "for fun" and thrill seeking.  They know the police chase will eventually be abandoned.

This week, a gang of south Auckland girls who call themselves "Pretty But Gangster" posted alarming footage of a high-speed chase with police online. In the video, a girl in the passenger seat is heard yelling at the driver: "Slow down for the corner. I don't wanna die b****."  ​The girls are then seen raising their middle fingers to the police car and shout out "motherf***ers" as the chase weaves through suburban streets. It comes just two months after 16-year-old Eden Nathan died in a stolen car crash after being pursued by police. The car was allegedly driven by a 15-year-old, also associated with the PBG gang.  A fellow PBG member and one of Nathan's close friends said stealing cars was about "causing trouble for fun".

In our view, the balance is not yet properly struck.  There ought to be severe legal and economic consequences for fleeing from police using a vehicle.  These could include:

If the vehicle was stolen, full restitution to be made to the registered owner and/or insurance company.

If any of the perps own vehicles, those vehicles (and other property) should be seized automatically and sold at auction to fund restitution.

Automatic cancellation of drivers's licenses of all involved (whether actually driving or not), with a lien on re-applying for a license for a period of five to ten years.

Automatic cancellation of passports (if held), and a prohibition on getting a passport for five years.

Automatic termination of all state welfare benefits and transfer payments being received by the perpetrators for five years.  

These penalties should apply to all the occupants of the fugitive vehicle, since all were involved in the crime.

We are reasonably confident that the "fleeing driver" problem would dissolve away pretty quickly, except for the seriously criminal element.  Even then we believe there would be sufficient deterrent in the penalties listed above to restrain the more hardened criminal element from failing to stop for police.

We acknowledge that such steps are unlikely ever to be taken.  Transfer welfare payments are pretty much regarded in New Zealand as a fundamental divine right, equivalent to the the right-to-life. According to New Zealand's welfare culture such penalties would amount to "cruel and unusual punishment".  Mind you, we have to acknowledge that the state has begun to link welfare receipts to behaviour in the case of seeking and getting jobs.  Unemployment benefits can now be reduced if recipients are not active in seeking work.  It has had a noticeable effect we are told.

The old adage remains true: what you pay for, you get more of.  If society continues to pay young hoodlums their welfare cheques, it will be afflicted with more of the kind of lawless behaviour of gangs like Pretty But Gangster.  Why not?  It's all a big hoot.  Everybody, including the government, thinks so.  No doubt the thinking is, "The gummint still pays us money; it  still funds us, so it's just a game.  They pretend they are mad, we pretend we are bad.  What a hoot."