Police in Auckland secretly filmed scores of people walking past an actor posing as a child scavenging for food as part of recruitment campaign

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A social experiment by New Zealand police has filmed hundreds of people ignoring a homeless boy digging through a rubbish bin in Auckland for food.



The “hungry boy” video is part of a recruitment campaign by the New Zealand police, and poses the question “Do you care enough to be a cop?”

New Zealand's 'cannabis crisis': smokers confirm chronic shortage Read more

The child featured in the video – a thin, pale, red-headed boy with dirt smeared on his face – is an actor, but the reactions of people walking past him are genuine, New Zealand police said.

Karen Jones, head of the police department’s public affairs team, said: “We have filmed a series of real-life social experiment scenarios exploring issues our officers deal with daily – involving the safety of the young and the vulnerable people in our communities. We wanted to see how many people would step up to help.”

The video was filmed in central Auckland and focuses on the desperate-looking boy scrounging for food in a public rubbish bin and appearing to snack on discarded food scavenged from inside.

Hundreds of people walk past ignoring him, and a couple even throw rubbish into the bin he is rifling through.

The majority of the passersby – whose faces are blurred in the footage – do not glance in the child’s direction or make eye contact with him, and one man even takes a photo of him on his phone.

At the end of the video the boy retires to sit on a public bench, and a number of young women – one dressed in a school uniform – approach him and ask “Where are you parents?”

One of the young women squats on the pavement to speak to the child on his level, and another reaches out and squeezes his shoulder.

“Are you OK?” they ask. “Do you want any food? Do you want any money?”

Police said the scene was recorded over 35 minutes, and in that time 500 people had the opportunity to see the boy.

Three groups of people stopped to speak to him (a total of seven people) and three individuals.

“If you said you would have stopped, then you may be just the kind of person NZ police is looking for,” said Jones.

The video has been viewed 200,000 times since being posted on Facebook on Monday.

