‘Pressures can lead to crime’

Press, 1 October 1979, Page 31

‘Pressures can lead to crime’

■ I PA Hamilton I High-pressure advertising I was tempting the young ■people of today to shoplift and commit burglaries, aci cording to DetectiveI) Sergeant Ford, of the Ham- ! ilton C. 1.8. ') Speaking to the Waikato branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, this week, Detective Ford decried older people who took a “holier than thou” attitude towards young people. “While not defending the

shoplifters, we should realise that the pressures and opportunities were not there in our day.”

In the past, goods were displayed on shelves and collected by the shopkeeper, removing the situation where customers could walk around the store holding merchandise.

Today there was also tremendous pressure by advertising, he said. “Advertising creates the image of some goods that no self-respecting teen-ager would be without, yet many young people cannot afford to buy the articles.” Detective Ford said for these reasons it was important that the whole field of education about the consequences of crime be opened up. He said that 27 per cent of total offenders in New Zealand last year were aged under 17.

Although such offenders were often committing crimes of a more minor nature, such things as shoplifting frequently led to more serious offences.