You Get More of What You Pay For

Subsidising Criminal Gangs

Gangs, criminal gangs, are a real problem in New Zealand.  They have now been around long enough that they are creating inter-generational problems.  Officials have started  researching the cycle of violence and criminal behaviour that moves from one generation to another.  Most of this stuff is what everyone really suspected or expected, but measuring and quantifying is very useful.

Firstly, it shows that the taxpayers subsidise gangs and virtually fund their continuing existence.  The old adage has it, What you pay for, you get more of.  To the extent that society (the taxpayer) funds and supports gangs and gang members is the extent to which gangs and gang culture will always be with us.

Nine of every 10 gang members in New Zealand have received a benefit or other welfare, costing the country $525 million between 1993 and 2014, a new report reveals.   Sixty per cent of children born to gang parents were abused or neglected, the report, by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), also found.  In total, cycles of violence within gang families will cost New Zealand's welfare system $714 million over their lifetimes. [Stuff NZ]

We now have record numbers of people in our prisons.  Thirty percent of those--one in three--are affiliated with a gang.  Roughly, one third of the criminal offending is from gangs.  Moreover, the vast majority of these gang incarcerates are victims of family violence--much of which is gang affiliated family violence.

 Police and Corrections Minister Judith Collins said gangs were a "huge driver" of child deaths and family violence, and tackling gangs would make a big difference to New Zealand's poor record.  "If you...look at the number of people in jail, they are almost invariably victims of family violence themselves somewhere along the line, and that's what breeds violence.  If we're going to really make a dent in those figures….and help people save their lives, we're going to have to deal with those gangs."

"When prison directors tell me that 90 per cent of the inmates in our jails were themselves victims of family violence, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out, if we can cut down family violence we'll cut down our prison population."

The solutions to the existence of this societal scab are never going to be simple.  But one thing that must be considered is to turn off the financial incentives to remain a gang member.  One very direct--and we believe--effective, cold-turkey measure would be to turn off the money spigot for anyone and everyone involved with a criminal gang.  The only way to get the welfare hose reconnected would be to come out from among the gangs and separate themselves.

The present government has made excellent progress by insisting upon personal responsibility in order to continue to receive taxpayers' money.  The same approach needs to be applied to gang affiliation and gang membership and gang associations.  As long as a welfare applicant remains associated with a criminal gang, the payments have to stop--or at least be severely curtailed.

We expect that receiving no taxpayer funds while in a gang or associated socially with a gang member would make a huge difference.  We expect that a requirement to name and identify all one's former associates (sexual partners, parents, children, partners of gang members, etc) and comprehensive trespass orders and a no-association requirement with all those people before receiving, or continuing to receive, state welfare would be devastating to the gangs.