Hey Dips since I live in the sticks I'll have a go. I also have several mates who are policemen, and two who are lawyers (the one dude is a co-owner of the town's biggest law firm. No, I don't get discount and nor have a been the defendant [yet]). And my neighbour is a parole officer. My one cop mate transferred to Te Anau, a piskoud tiny plekkie in the south island near Queenstown because he couldn't handle the constant domestic abuse stuff in our locale. Almost exclusively Maori, people on the benefit, booze and P, abusing each other and their kids constantly. He said he was starting to hate his job as a result, and so took the transfer to what is a beautiful place, but far from everywhere (and NZ is already far from everywhere). The other cop mate I have is in the detective squad, I often see him after a night shift and he just shakes his head and goes, man it's a wild world out there, but doesn't talk about it. My lawyer mates...the one who is the co-owner (Steve) is a criminal lawyer so he does a lot of court stuff defending what he calls 'sh1theads'. The other (Angie, who is at the same firm) does a lot of family law stuff, so effectively cleaning up the mess after the 'sh1theads' have been processed by the cops. Both are OK with it. As Steve once said after he had to take a bus to the Coromandel, 'I want to profit from their misery, not partake in it'. They are very busy because there is a lot of cleaning up to do. It's more or less that same for my PO neighbour Annie. She deals with the rehabilitation side of things. She's an older lady, and doesn't really talk about her work, but she is happy and well adjusted (we hang out with our neighbours a lot). All of that said, I am a nobody just living my life and raising my boys. We rarely see any of the gang bollocks; you will occasionally have a convoy of Mongrel Mob or Black Power bikies roar through (like a bunch of teenagers - what a lot of pathetic gimps) and once or twice there have been public skirmishes in town, usually after a sh1thead has popped its clogs and is being shoved in the ground; they like rarking it up a bit in a 'sign of respect' (yeah WTF I know). But when they do this nonsense, it is contained to throwing rocks, flashing shotguns and occasionally smacking one another around. The gangs, as you may gather, are highly antagonistic but focus that negative energy on one another. Now, the one potential worry is that the kids from broken homes (I come from one of those) go to the same schools...well, you can see the ones who are from that side. Always late, sullen, antisocial, etc. Now, of course I feel sorry for them. But as the boys get older, I also worry about the poor influence when in high school, etc (I now realise I was the sort that should not be hung around with when I was in high school...but this isn't about me ). Now, I know a number of kids who have attended the local high schools, gone on to complete their degrees and who are now happy, healthy, productive members of society. So as always, probably comes down to good parenting and a dose of good fortune, particularly if you take the Gary Player approach to luck. TL, DR = gang nonsense, dom violence is prevalent especially in my area. It has zero effect on average people and makes some of my mates rich. Edit for paragraphs. We're not savages, you know.
