Kate Hawkesby: I do wonder when our country's crime spree will end

As I got woken by the not so dulcet tones of the Police helicopter at 2 o'clock this morning, I wondered when the crime spree this country is experiencing might come to an end, or even if it can?Are we so far down the road now on lack of consequences that people feel entitled to behave any way they like with no fear of punishment?Has mob rule replaced any authority Police once had? Headlines these days make for sobering reading; 'Woman killed in West Auckland shooting ‘or ‘Woman dies after being assaulted’, that was in broad daylight by the way.Crimes are no longer for after dark, we seem to be a 24/7 business now in this country of vicious criminal behaviour. ‘Gang brawl – person hit by car in Whangarei’ or ‘Man seriously hurt after being shot in Rolleston’.You’ll note the crime is no longer just limited to Auckland by the way. I had a couple of people message me last week saying ‘you can keep your crime in Auckland, we don’t want knives and guns here thanks ‘and yet, time to get your head out of the sand, crime and guns and gangs and knives are everywhere now.As a parent, it makes you think twice. Do your kids really need to be in a mall on their own? Should they really be in town at night? But then even walking down the street in broad daylight these days seems it could be dodgy. There’s been a shift in the balance of what’s acceptable and what isn’t when it comes to socially acceptable behaviour I reckon. Seemingly, carrying knives is just something that happens now with many young people.Hooded thugs armed with baseball bats smashing into jewellery stores and robbing them in about 30 seconds flat then taking off, like the burglary the other day at Auckland’s Westfield mall, seem impossible to stop.Even if security or Police had been near, can you stop 5 determined robbers with bats? And is that part of the problem? They know that. They know they won’t be stopped. It’s like the teens who were interviewed after the ram raiding about why they do it. And they said - because they know they’ll get away with it and that Police will do nothing.I mean, good on them for their honesty, but how depressing. There’s been a gradual, which is now seismic,  shift away from policing and enforcement, towards crime and violence. And turning that around seems nigh on impossible. New Police Minister Chris Hipkins says he’s not interested in the ‘tough on crime’ debate. Probably because he knows they’ve lost it.They’re not tough on anything. Soft on crime is their problem.  National’s Police Spokesperson Mark Mitchell jumped on this as soon as Hipkins said it. "If his initial response.. [is].. to say that he doesn't want to be seen as tough on crime, then it doesn't seem like he's had a very good start,” he was reported as saying.And here’s the worry, crime is beyond a problem now, it’s an attitude. And the attitude is, ‘I’ll get away with it.’That’s a really hard thing to turn around. And even harder, when you’ve got a series of police ministers who say they’re not interested in any talk about being ‘tough on crime.’See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.