Police say the number of ramraids is now trending down after the vehicle-based crime became popular among a section of young people.
There were 57 ramraids across the nation in April, almost two a day – setting the record for the highest number in a month – information released under the Official Information Act reveals.
Superintendent Jill Rogers said ramraid figures are now trending down.
Counties Manukau district commander Jill Rogers said data showed the number of ramraids was trending down and police’s efforts to catch the young offenders
But the numbers, the first public look at police’s ramraid data, showed 2022 is the worst year yet, with 254 ramraids carried out in the first six months.
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In 2019, police recorded 151 ramraids. In 2020 there were 111, increasing to 303 in 2021.
The increase in ramraids comes as youth crime overall has decreased, creating questions as to why one form of crime has spiked.
Police think social media is driving the trend and a 2022 report also released under the Official Information Act said “ramraids are reportedly being committed for fun and notoriety” by the next generation.
It also said the criminals are sometimes taking drugs, usually meth, before committing the crime and then posting their exploits online, sometimes even livestreaming the crimes.
Rogers said she couldn’t predict if figures would settle back down to earlier levels, but she thought police’s work had turned the tide of the number of hits and was contributing to the reduction.
Nimesh Patel, owner of The Elizabeth Dairy in Belmont, is frustrated after ramraiders targetted his store.
“What we do know is offending like ramraids is very cyclical, so it becomes popular for a while and we see quite dramatic increases in offending, and then they tend to trend down again, as the case is at the moment.”
Rogers said another recent development was younger offenders as they were hitching along with their older ramraider siblings. The 2022 report also blamed organised youth crime that has grown out of connections made by offenders in the juvenile detention system.
“You’ll see more referrals to youth engagement, and you’ll see more solved that way. We’ve definitely noted the age of those involved has decreased, which is of concern,” she said.
The district commander said offenders had usually been exposed to domestic violence multiple times at home, had mental health issues and lacked role model figures.
“This is a small number of people involved in a significant amount of the offending,” she said.
Rogers couldn’t give the figure on how many of those “small number of people” committing ramraids were in her district, or nationally.
The 2022 study found only 4% were patched gang members and another 5% had associations.
Police have no evidence to suggest the claim made in media that ramraids were being used as a gang initiation. Instead, police say that the crimes are linked to youth gangs.
Police have identified 952 ramraids nationally since June 2017.
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