LETTERS: Fear freezes Indian family

Thursday, June 17, 2010 10:48

Police initiatives to offer crime prevention advice to diverse communities are welcome. But if a particular community is being targeted because of, for example, their religion or culture, ethnicity, age or gender, the police should focus on those committing the crimes.
Good crime prevention advice is relevant to everyone, but it is completely inappropriate if people who are the victims of crime are being told to deny or conceal their identity.
Joris de Bres
Race Relations Commissioner

Your latest article on police warning Asian families about robberies and other attacks tends towards advice on concealment against what should be advice on "active" crime prevention.
The police spokesperson, obviously one with an Asian heritage and no doubt a sincere wish to avoid this type of crime, advises against advertising the presence of Asians such as flying national flags and other cultural symbols in an obviously multi-racial community. I would have thought that this was a contradiction against the need for assimilation into the New Zealand culture of openness and transparency which most New Zealanders would support.
Any "new" lawful New Zealander" should be able to rejoice in their new found cultural "adoption" without losing their own identity.
In my opinion it would be more advantageous for the police to promote the accessibility of the security of banks and maybe hidden floor safes (that require more than one person to open) for Asian businesses to use instead of the very scary practice of holding large amounts of cash and jewellery on site. This should be the job of crime prevention including using various Asian media (radio as well as print) to promote safety first, and not a policy of "run and hide".
The police would do well to carry out "in depth interviews" of offenders to see if any avenue of possible crime prevention can be extracted and used to the benefit of both Asians and the police.
Steve Anderton
Manly