Kiota.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The government's promised the free ride for gangs is officially over. From today, gang patches will no longer be allowed to be worn in public, Courts will be able to issue non consulting orders, and police will be able to stop members from communicating
with each other. Greater weight will also be given to gang membership as sentencing, and repeat offenders continually convicted of displaying their patches in public will.
Be subject to a new court order.
Prohibiting them from possessing any gang insignia in public or private for five years. But will any of this be any kind of deterrent to the reported more than nine.
Thousand gang members in New us Zealand.
Today on the front page, lifetime Black Power member and community advocate Dennis O'Reilly is with us to discuss his perspective on these new laws. Dennis, just for starters, can you introduce yourself to our listeners? What's your background and why are you perhaps a good person to be able to talk to us about gangs.
I joined the Black Pair in nineteen seventy two. I became the chief executive of the Group Employment Liaison Service, which was a government agency set up after the Committee on Gangs in nineteen eighty one. I've studied gangs internationally and in twenty eleven I put my patch down and became a Comato or parkeke for the funu of the first to the Black Pair.
So police has this document called the National Gang List, which attempts to record patched and prospect members of gangs in New Zealand. Now, its primary purpose isn't to count the membership numbers, but it gives us a pretty good indication on how many numbers there are and how it's tracking overall.
I don't think it does.
You don't reckon So at the moment it has members at nine thousand, four hundred and forty seven.
Does that not sound right?
Well, I don't know. Prior to you know, all through the seventies and eighties and until the Fourth Labor Government, gang membership stated about two and a half thousand, and was actually declining because of the presence of work schemes and those sorts of things. I'm no longer on the gang list, but it took some doing to get into that state. And so when people die, or when there's a rough calculation of who you might be, or you know, if you've come to Jesus and changed your mind or whatever,
so you don't necessarily fall off. So I don't know how valid that information.
Is, right, So it could be a lot less you reckon.
It could be a lot more.
I know you've.
Probably been asked this a thousand times, but I'm going to go ahead and ask you once more.
Why do people join gangs?
Oh, for a variety of reasons. It's interesting that we've just come through the apology by the government on the Royal Commission of Abuse and State Care, and the two largest indigenous gangs basically came out of the boys' homes, the Black Power and the Mongrel Bob, and that's been clearly indicated in the evidence. And they were alienated and marginalized by the state, and so the gang became an act of resistance. It became a family that they could
feel safe. And after the Labor Government of the Fourth Labor Government stopped all the work schemes, the gangs tended to become criminalized. There's a different thing, I think between what you might call organized crime and more sociological phenomenon of the indigenous New Zealand gang, and so the next generation we're born into that life. That's what you've got. You've got into generational transfer. For some people, that's labeling.
If you come from a certain town or a certain suburb, you're automatically assumed to be a member of this or that group. So there are a variety of reasons why you end up being called a gang member.
What do you make of the government's crackdown on gangs.
Well, it's consistent with their desire to double the prison population, to increase the creator super prison and lock up more young Malti people. It's a turn to the right. It is a discontinuity and the only thing that we can be sure about where there are discontinuities is that you can't be sure.
Gangs pedal misery and intimidation throughout our communities, and this go determined to give police and the courts the powers they need to deal with them. Just one in every four hundred New Zealanders are identified as gang members, yet they're linked to nearly one in five serious violent crime offenses.
So people join gangs for all different kinds of reasons. And you've mentioned that intergenerational reason as well. It's not just about a bunch of people gravitating towards a life of crime or anything, is it. I mean, has it a guess how many gang members actually participate in crime?
I would say a small percentage. I think in the main most are tax paying New Zealand citizens and try and struggling to be good parents. In the same way as cricketers and whatever might use cocaine or other people indulge in different sort of recreational substances, so do gang members. But in the main, if we can get people into employment and keep them employment, you know, that's what they'll be,
tax paying citizens. Where we marginalize and demonize, that's when you start to set up that sort of last resort criminal activity thing. And we have to be cautious about this. The previous commissioner, I think was pretty smart where there was a high degree of liaison and a readiness to have a big stick if you wanted to move into organized crime or disruptive behavior. The big shift that I have noticed is a move much more towards Faro and
Wahini leadership, and I think it's no mistake. You know, for instance, that the Malti Queen is a young malty woman, that are MP's a young malty women. And I think that Wahini led far have actually made a huge change and that change has been developing, and I hope this new policy does not interrupt that trend.
How seriously do you think gang members will take the ban on patches and insignia?
Well, I think most will follow mister Goldsmith's advice, and that is struggle not to get caught. And the advice from most leaders is, you know, leave your patch at home until we see how this thing works out. But you know, if you try and take a patch of someone by force, you can expect to have force in response.
And do you think that's what's going to happen.
I don't know. As I said, it's a bit like mister Trump's presidency, we don't really know what's going to roll out, do we.
If you're not allowed to wear your patches, aren't there other ways I imagine, well a gang picking a color or something exactly.
It's semiotics, you know. For instance, you know, I come from the fahna of the fist. The fist is an upraised fist as a sign of resistance that's internationally accepted. We've often used Nelson Mandela's fist as a semiotic our colors are police blue. Yes, you start to try and unpick these things at a semiotic level, you really end up in a struggle and you could end up with the Nike Swish as being you know so so young people particularly are very very quick on social media, and
these things will morph and change. It's not what you're wear, it's how you behave that's the issue. And if we focused on behaviors, that's where we'll get societal change. I can understand where people get intimidated by a big batch of gang members, especially if they're behaving abysmally. But I was on that Hekoy there were well over forty thousand people there. There were a lot of people with the mutter aura, with facial mukalls, with carrying weapons as traditional
weapons and whatever, and the vibe was fantastic. So it's not just a big collection of people. The police already had the provisions of the Unlawful Assemblies Act well, where three or more people gathered together causing the stress of fear amongst the public could be arrested and see so in a way, this new legislation is just pandering to an anxious, white middle class population, who the research demonstrates are the people less likely to be affected by gang activity.
In terms of gang patches, Dennis, what do you have to do to get one?
Do you have to do something bad?
Well? I earned a patch, and I don't think i'd anything bad. I'm no saint, but I was good at organizing, work, at finding people accommodation, helping people get representation and the law. So like most, you know, the all blacks have a thing of no idiots, you know, and so generally showing that you're prepared to contribute to your fano, to work,
to assist, to try and make things better. I don't know of any specific club that says you've got to go and commit crime, although I've heard those stories.
Yeah, is that a bit of a misconception that all patched members have done something? You know, that they've had to go and do something.
There will be different crews who have got different morals and values.
When it comes to gangs.
We're constantly told things like prison is the gang's recruitment center.
Is this Trueue?
That's true?
So what happens there?
Well, I mean you're in a closed environment. Prison by nature is a violent society and the research demonstrates that, and so you better affiliate with someone.
And when it comes to those anti consorting laws and stopping members from communicating with each other, what do you think the repercussions will be by I guess criminalizing people because of association rather than their behaviors.
Well, in the main where Maori and Polynesian where gregarious, we're part of broad network families and it's going to be a bit difficult, isn't it, you know, And I mean, you know, we saw the two hoy raids and the misreading of what was going on there, and I think there's lots of potential for that, and that's why I think softly softly. I heard mister Basham speaking earlier about that they the police will be taking a cautious approach, and so I think we just need to make sure
that everyone's faro is safe. And by that I mean Gangfarno and police Farno. Those policemen and policewomen want to go home to their farna at the end of the day, and similarly, gangfaro don't want men coming in smashing down their doors and terrifying their kids and the older people. So you know, I think let's you know, focus on on sort of looking after each other, pro social leaders to the four please, But we are entering uncharted their waters here, and yeah, I don't. I can't really predict.
Do you think gangs can be their own worst enemies at times? Do you look at incidents like the gang war between the Killer Bees and the Tribesmen say in twenty twenty two, the Sofotel lobby shooting a few years back involving patched head hunters, Look, yeah, do you see those and just shake your head?
Self defeating behaviors, misapplied intellects, all of that sort of stuff.
Absolutely, these incidents don't really dear gangs to the public or to politicians or police, do they?
No?
And I think the gang members telling you they don't care stuff. You know, they've been rejected by society, labeled and demonized, and this is their response.
Do you think some gangs are better than others in terms of working together with society and being able to get along.
It's hard to It's all depended upon leadership, and there will be maladjusted leaders in one group that a generation before may have been led in a very positive direction that may then go down a very negative direction. I think the arrival of meth amphetamine changed a whole lot of things. But let's face it, the people who make money from meth tend not to live in New Zealand.
When you've got game members out there that don't stick to the rules like everyone else and run rossshot over the top of people's rights, when they have a trail of misery and victims sitting behind them, they're going to lose some rights. So when they want to actually, when they want to front up and atually join society in a positive way and do what everyone else does and shot and be proud key weies that actually adhered to the law, then they might get some rights back.
The Attorney General, Judith Collins, has made references to the Bill of Rights and said banning insignia in public places, for example, breached the right to freedom of expression. Instead, she noted there could be more tailored offenses, like protecting the public from intimidations by gangs, for example, for making it illegal to wear patches in places like schools or hospitals.
Do you reckon that's more reasonable?
Well, look the most outrageous thing that happened in New Zealand a white Australian who've got a guden license. So I think you need to have a wider lens than picking on young indigenous populations.
You're talking about multi and pacifica games right, black power mongol mob. But there are those that we've imported, like the killerbes, the tribesmen, headhunters. Do you reckon it's got the same values as you.
Well, the tribesmen, killerbs and headhunters are all all tend to be marrying polynesia themselves. You know, you've got this five oh one thing and you've got you know, but we have real international criminal organizations working in this country, at work in this country, and I put it to you that they might dress in suits and attend large political party fundraisers. You know, that's really where the money is.
And so most of what you see on the periphery well down the criminal value chain, as it were, but that's where most of the energy gets. I often think that sometimes middle white New Zealand thinks that the Mari gang member is like the Mari warrior coming to collect the rent, and they get trepidation at that level. So I just think in this whole heated environment at the moment, the apology by the crown, the doubling, the intention by the state to double the prison population, the building of
mega prisons. I mean, who's going to go in there? You know, the business people on that, They'll get Ron Mansfield k C to represent them. You know, our fellows can't even get Section twenty sevens Now, if.
People are worried about people joining gangs and the violence that some members may perpetrate, what do you think should be done to tackle these issues.
I think that you engage people in work, in education, that you stop the labeling and you reach out. This young brown population are the working population. They're going to keep old white folks in their pensions in years to come. So rather than alienating and marginalizing them, let's work with them. You know, I think there has been some good work going on, but I'm on that front line. You know,
I've been a senior civil servant. I've administered national programs of that focused around work, and we've pulled all of that stuff away or we're doing. Angela Davis, that great you know, American liberationist. She says that the prison industrial industry, you know is the new cotton fields, where where black people get locked up to make money for white people.
So let's let's back off, calm down and get back on track in terms of engaging people in work and believing that our young people are full of potential rather than pathology.
Thanks for joining us, Dennis Sweet.
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzedherld dot co dot nz.
The Front Page is produced.
By Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
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