Exclusive: Black Power boss speaks out on gang law changes

A Black Power boss has criticised the Government's proposed introduction of new police powers aimed at seizing criminal assets, saying the changes will lead to overreach and children will suffer as a result.

Mark Pitman, leader of the New Zealand Chapter of Black Power, approached 1News after the measures were announced. He fears they will ensnare innocent people, inviting us to Black Power's Auckland headquarters to talk.

"You've got gang members and you're going after their friends and that, that are not criminals - well, I don't think that's right," Pitman said.

Justice Minister Kiri Allan and Police Minister Chris Hipkins announced the planned changes last Monday.

"Currently, organised criminals structure their affairs to avoid their illicit assets being restrained and forfeited," Allan said at the time. "This is done by creating distance between themselves and the assets by putting property into associates' names."

The new powers will mean "if someone is associated with an organised criminal group and its suspected they couldn't have funded their assets legitimately, then they can now be required to prove to the court how they came to possess them - or face having them seized".

Hipkins added the measures go "hand in hand with the Government's support for work within communities to stop young people becoming involved in crime and gangs in the first place".

But Pitman argues the children of gang members may be the worst-affected: "They're just going to be anti, anti-police, anti-Government, anti-everything, really.

"In the end of the day the only ones getting hurt out of all this are the children, you traumatise them.

"The kids grow up and you wonder why there's so much crime - it's 'cause they're living the life of what's happened to them in the past."

Pressed on whether the key issue isn't what the gang does with criminal assets, Pitman acknowledged that some gang members are criminals - but not all of them.

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And he doesn't believe the seizures would be limited to criminal assets: "They always say that. I don't trust them because of what I've been through with my family. They'll look for another angle and try and take it anyway."

Pitman claimed he once had a house seized from him that had been bought entirely with legitimate income.

"I've been working for many many years, I bought my first property, I had assets. They took all those away from me."

He also argued not all gangs are the same, agreeing in principle with the Government trying to prevent gangs profiting from crime, but expressing concern for the children of those who had assets seized.

"What they're doing today, they're just going in and doing it instead of sitting down and talking to leaders of all these organisations.

"They're moving the goalposts to suit them. I don't trust the Crown."

But the Government rejects his argument, clear it's only after the proceeds of crime.

"This is about ensuring crime doesn't pay and that there are major consequences for criminal and gang activity," Allan said.

And there are safeguards in the proposal intended to prevent innocent people being swept up. These include that the associates need to meet a certain threshold of affiliation with the gang, the property being seized must be worth at least $30,000, and a judge will decide whether or not the assets were legally or illegally obtained.

Responding to Pitman's claims, Allan said the law targets "those that are in leadership positions of any organised criminal activity".

She said that the aim was to prevent those "up the food chain" from being able to "keep their hands clean while having others go out and do those criminal activities on their behalf", and to prevent other circumventions of the rules.

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"We've thought deeply about the safeguards that would apply because you wouldn't, of course, want the state being able to reach their hands into the affairs of ordinary New Zealanders that have clean hands. I don't think anyone would find that position tolerable."

Allan said she herself has people involved in organised criminal activity in her family circles, and "this is New Zealand after all, we are only less than two degrees of separation to others".

"What the police would have to prove in these circumstances is that I, as somebody who is more than a mere acquaintance, have received property of more than $30,000 value - a house, a car, that's in my name - that that property has been obtained likely from criminal activity."

Allan said she couldn't speak specifically to Pitman's circumstances, but "where there are goods that have been received as a consequence of lawful behaviour, you can prove that to a court".

"The only people that I've seen make ardent advocacy against this legislation is indeed the people which it is intended to target."

Jarrod Gilbert, a sociologist and expert on gangs, said Pitman's approach to 1News was "an incredibly unusual situation" and "in fact often, the gangs avoid the media at all costs and I can't remember another instance where this has occurred".

Gilbert agrees something needs to be done about criminal enterprise in New Zealand, but says there is a balance to be struck.

"Without question this is a problem, it is an issue, and we need to look at ways to counter that. We need to stay one step ahead of organised crime and what that means is that if people are hiding assets in ways that are currently very difficult to touch, then we need to clearly break that down and this is seen as one way of potentially doing that.

"Now that's not to say that it's without its pitfalls. We've got a balance here between tackling organised crime and preserving civil liberties, so it's how we draw that balance is the key."

Responding to Pitman's concerns, Gilbert said: "There are a couple of things here. If we're going to make it easier to seize assets, we have to ensure that it's an easy process for people to prove that the assets are legally gained. We need to make a very clear delineation that we're capturing only those people that the law would be intending to target.

"Proof of that is in how well the law is drafted and, equally importantly, how well it's implemented, and then how well it is reviewed to ensure what was intended is indeed happening."

Ultimately, Gilbert backed the proposed measures' intentions.

"If you're not involved in organised crime, then this shouldn't bother you greatly."

READ MORE: Explainer: How do other countries deal with gang crime?

Cabinet agreed to the changes last Monday, the relevant amendments to the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act were introduced to Parliament last Tuesday, and they will go to a select committee to confirm the details.

The Government aims to pass the proposal into law by early next year.

Watch the story on 1News at 6pm on Thursday.