Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Denise Garland: Retail NZ Advocacy Manager on Shoplifting rising to its highest level in 15 years

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Denise Garland: Retail NZ Advocacy Manager on Shoplifting rising to its highest level in 15 years · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Shoplifting, it's highest rate in fifteen years. But police are
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: laying more charges thirty six thousand charges, that is the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: most since two thousand and nine. And they're not stealing
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: because cost of living necessity. Mostly it's on selling on Facebook.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Denise Garland, retail in Zed advocacy manager, with me this morning. Denise,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Killer, good morning. Do you feel that that
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the cops are doing more? They've got their retail crime unit,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: they're cracking down on this.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: There are two sides to this. It's great that these
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: retail crime units have been stood up in every police
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: district around the country now and it does seem to
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: be this real focus on retail crime. But we do
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: know that shoplifting in particular is under reported by retailers.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Our twenty twenty four crime report found only twenty seven
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: percent of retailer report all shoplifting incidents to police, and
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: so we do not so that this is a massive
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: issue and actually demonstrates the level of retail crime we're
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: experiencing in our stores.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Is the violence in the all of that Arjibaji gone, well,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: not gone, but has that come down and it's now
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: just people who are flogging something are sticking it down
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: their pants and walking out.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately not we're still seeing those rates of violent and
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: aggressive crime increase, even though we are seeing overall rates
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: of retail crime sort of come down slightly.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: And when you, Denise, when you ring the police and say, hey,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: someone's just coming and assaulted me. Are they turning up?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Are they doing something?
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, we know police are really stretched. There is
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: this focus on retail crime, and they will attend when
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: there is harm and threats threatening behavior happening. It tends
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: to be the sort of lower level of crime, retail
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: crime like shotlifting, that they may not be able to attend. However,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: with the rising levels of violence and a stretch police force,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: there will be incidents that where they just cannot attend
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: in a timely manner.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Given that, Denise, because you guys are anti the citizen
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: arrest situation, but given that police will never get to everything.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: If the rates are as high you as you're saying
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: that they are, and the numbers suggest that they are,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: why not give people the right, even if it's not
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: your store, whither the workers or the staff, but other
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: people in the store, to actually do something about it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Otherwise we will keep being taken for a ride.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're just really concerned. Our retailers are really concerned
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: that this will just increase rates of harm in our
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: stores and make these stores unsafer. We're not trained like
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: police are to deal with people who are aggressive. We
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: find that in our retailer is find that de escalation
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: techniques and being hands off is much more safer for
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: the customers and the staff in stores. And if we
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: see citizens arrest happening in our stores, we're really concerned
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: that that will just increase the numbers of injuries. Offenders
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: may arm up proactively going into stores knowing that somebody
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: may attempt to citizens arrest on them, and we just
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: don't want to see that in our.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Community, all right, Denise Garland, Retailions Advocacy Managers. For more
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to News
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Talks at b from five am weekdays, or follow the
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio.