Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Another day and another debate on crime and what to do with it. There is no doubt the craze for ram raiding amongst the young has contributed to the perception that crime is out of control. Add to that the growing number of gun crimes particularly amongst the gangs.  It has led to a feeling that our streets are more unsafe than they've ever been before. It has led to the debate on crime to be all about punishment and all about crimes of violence and trespass. But the iceberg of crime is far bigger than we mostly hear and like an iceberg the biggest crimes are unreported. Jarrod Gilbert writes today about the incredible level of white collar crime we have in New Zealand and our laissez faire attitude towards it. He cites a couple of cases recently. The bloke charged with stealing $ 600,000 by defrauding the Covid wage subsidy.  Another case saw an allegation of an employer pocketing his staff's PAYE payments to the tune of $300,000. The size of the problem is even more evident when you look at the assets of cr