VANDALISM INCREASING

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 September 1945, Page 3

VANDALISM INCREASING

DISCUSSION IN HOUSE : WELLINGTON, Sept. 12. In the House to-day a discussion on ; the widespread incidence of vandal- . 'ism in the Dominion, and on the need for effective measures to curb it, was initiated by a report from the Local Bills Committee that the Wellington City Anti-Vandalism Bill be not al- : lowed to proceed, but that the Goivernment be urged (1) to provide additional safeguards against vandalism ;by means of general legislation and. ' (2) to provide further means of educating young people in the duties of l citizenship, and, generally for their leisure and recreation. As instances of the extent to which vandalism was rife in Wellington, Mr. Bowden (Nat., Wellington West) said that, in the last six months fortyeight walk-to-the-left signs had been damaged. School signs, street name plates, and other signs were damaged frequently. Public seats were often broken. Gardening tools and materi- | als were stolen. Taxi telephones were ! pulled out and left on the pavement. ■ Three tramway waiting sheds were set on fire, and others were damaged. In a period of six months, 130 street lamps were broken. In one night in the city reserves, two hundred nameplates were stolen from plants. Mr. Bowden said that the Police Depart-i-nnr>f nmllH nnt hp blnm pH _ Th pv had

been short staffed, and they did their ■best to detect the offenders. An educational campaign was being carried on in schools, but it was not school children who were doing the damage. It was youths and men, who should know better. The position in Wellington had become so bad that a number of public-spirited citizens hadt offered to act at wardens. It was proposed to appoint them, with the full concurrence of the nolice, and to give them the powers of arrest only where the offenders refused to give their names and address, and only for a sufficient time to enable the wardens to hand such larrikins over to the nearest police station. Mr. Hackett (Govt., Grey Lynn): It is not police that they want. It is psychiatrists. •

MR. FRASER’S VIEW The Prime Minister said that the danger of investing untrained people with authority was that that authority was sometimes over-imposed. It was well known that every citizen had the right to arrest another if he caught him committing a crime, provided that he was prepared to face a possible action for .damages, afterward. Interference with the rights of the citizen was serious. He thought the Committee which dealt with this Biff had taken the right view, in spite of the fact that the Government desired to help the Wellington City Council and all other local bodies with similar problems. In spite of education through the schools and other avenues, there were not the results that we were e'ntitld to expect. There could be suggested, of course, civic education for adults. A social sense should be cultivated. He, nersonally, was in sympathy with the objects of this Bill. He was hopeful that a scheme could be devised to combat the vandalism. Mrs. Ross (Nat., Hamilton) said the. scenes in various parts of the country on V-J Day had proved that not all of the vandalism could be attributed to children, but adult vandals could best be eliminated by the wise education of the children. The. country would be better off, she said, if the cinemas were closed on the Saturday afternoons, and the children instead engaged in healthy recreation. The Committee’s report was adopted.