More Law and Order Nonsense from National

Intrigued by John Key’s fibs about violent crime being out of control in New Zealand, I thought I would have a prowl about National’s site and see if I could find other Tory Law and Order nonsense. I didn’t have to look far. One look at National’s most recent releases and I alighted upon Chester Burrows’ release about Police confidence. The gist of Burrows’ argument is that Labour’s “focus on getting 1,000 new police has distracted them [sic] from improving conditions for existing officers”.

Burrows’ cheap attempt to deal himself into the “engagement survey” results is bizarre. For a start, if you look at the Police Association’s media releases for the past five to six years you will see a consistent theme about the need for more Police - particularly in Auckland. This message abruptly changed in December 2005 when the Police Association celebrated the Labour-led government’s decision to add another 1000 Police. As the President of the Association said at the time,

“The Association been stressing the need for more frontline police for sometime, to build and maintain public confidence and meet their understandably high expectations of service. We see the commitment today as a real step towards the new Government’s pledge to achieve sworn police to population ratios comparable with that of Australia by 2010″

The Association has not resiled from this position. The only caveat to this is the Association’s concern about the possible reduction in recruiting standards and, as any good union should, then link this to the need to increase pay (see O’Connor’s 30 June 06 release).

So it would seem the Police - or at least the Police Association - would disagree with Mr Burrows’ characterisation of the focus on implementing 1000 additional Police as being a distraction.

What else would Burrows do - if he thinks adding more Police is just a distraction? Is he going to now champion Police salaries? Is that National’s policy?  I think he will find the Police wanting both - more cops and more money. The Labour-led government is providing more Police and, as the incumbent government, has unfortunately been a little less forthcoming about lifting pay rates for Police. But I am surprised, if not pleased, to see National potentially going into the Election with a promise to increase the pay rates of least one group of public servants.

Insulting Victims

We’ve previously noted our views about Simon Power’s limited game. His early successes at garnering media attention were pretty lazy affairs playing on traditional Tory/media bogeymen about crime and criminality. He has been the political equivalent of an ambulance chaser.

But as lazy as he has been in the past, I’ve always thought Power a reasonably smart person who, with a bit of application, might be able to elevate himself into a reasonable Opposition Spokesperson. But it looks like it might be too much effort for Power.

Power had a prime opportunity a few weeks ago to lift his game with the release of the Justice and Law Reform Select Committee’s inquiry into victims’ rights.

Thoughts On The Kuchenbecker Legal Aid Issue

Legal aid is an important part of our justice system; by ensuring that people without the resources to pay for it themselves have access to legal representation, legal aid attempts to meet two of the prime requirements of a just legal system: access to justice and equality before the law.

The ‘Kiwiblog Right’ hates legal aid; they spit and scream that poor people (or ‘criminal scum’ as they would label them) who face legal difficulties or care accused of crimes shouldn’t get legal representation provided to them by the State, and principles of a just legal system to damned.

The legal aid law was reformed last year to restrict access to government funding of legal representation for people who could afford their own representation.  Those changes were interpreted by the Legal Services Agency to mean that the family of Karl Kuchenbecker, murdered last year, would need to repay the legal aid bill for his inquest.  Naturally, the same people who howl at people getting state aid for legal representation now howled at a family being asked to pay their aid back at $25 a week.

Minister Annette King came out immediately and said that either that was a poor interpretation of the law or the law should be changed (which is a perfectly normal part of the shaking-down process when legal reforms are enacted), and the LSA, after a review, has reversed its decision.

The process worked: legal aid was received by a family who could not have afforded legal representation otherwise, the reforms worked in that they were more restrictive than previously was the case, and when the reforms were misapplied the Minister stepped in quickly to rectify the problem.  Would it have been better if this had never happened? Sure, but every party acted correctly and the problem was resolved speedily.

Christchurch Councillor Says Vigilante Killings OK

Christchurch City Councillor Barry Corbett condones the vigilante killing of people who commit minor crimes.

Speaking about the killing of a 16 year-old, who was tagging, by a 50-year old businessman, Corbett said “If I was on the jury, I would let him get away with it, but that is just me”

Can we take it that if Corbett’s son was, for example, driving dangerously Corbett would not object to a member of the public pursuing and killing him?

All the Council has said on the matter is that Corbett doesn’t speak for the Council and it has sympathy for the victim’s family.  No condemnation of Corbett’s comments that go both against the rule of law and common human decency. 

New Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker ought to hang his head in shame for this limp-wristed response to Corbett’s outrageous comments.

Violent Youth Offending Down, Peaked Last Time National Was In Power

“Apprehensions for youth offenders as a whole is declining” Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft said.  But wait, isn’t John Key telling us we’re being assaulted by a growing wave of violent youth criminals?

Well, an hour and a dozen stats pages later, it looks like its the judge not the moneytrader who has it right:

 

Violent offending by youths has not been increasing, it peaked in the mid-1990s (can anyone say ‘record youth unemployment under National?’).  As a percentage of all violent crime convictions, the 10-19 age group continues to decline.  Turns out its the 55-90 age group who are the bigger culprits these days.

After Brash’s racist Orewa speech the media was all abuzz about special privileges for Maori until they asked National for some actual examples, turns out they had none and they were exposed as the hollow men they are.  Looks like they’ve done it again.

McVicar Expolits Tragedy For Politics

I hate seeing people like Garth McVicar trying to make political mileage out of tragedies.  Predictably, he’s at it again today after the recent spate of homicides, with a barely coherent press release, wherein he labels New Zealand the “cesspool of the pacific [sic]“. 

Let’s get one thing clear.  Killings are very rare events in New Zealand: less than one in 62,000 people were killed by another person last year.  Yes, there have been 10 since New Year’s and that’s an unusually high amount, even for January when there is usually a concentration of killings.  However, that does not mean we are seeing an increase in the number of killings. 

With very rare events, like killings, there are sometimes clusters of them in a short time-frame, just as there are sometimes long periods when there are very few (there were only 12 in four months from March to July 2007 but you didn’t see articles screaming ‘Crime Under Control!’). 

With rare events, you can’t take a short periods of time and proclaim a trend.  You have to look at the long-term.  The number of killings is not going up: it is stable (with normal variation between years), and falling in per capita terms.

Acknowledging the facts that killings are rare and not increasing does not diminish the personal tragedies of the last few weeks.  Opportunist attempts to make political capital out of them does.

New Zealand Family Destroyed By Anti-Smacking Law

Oh, wait, no it hasn’t been.

Mr Farrar is on his high horse today over an incident, reported by The Press, in which a father was warned for assaulting his child in public.  Based on the father’s report, the assault was clearly minor and inconsequential, which is what the Police at the scene ascertained and why they chose to take the incident no further.

Basically:

the father flicks his boy’s ear when he won’t be quiet when the other son needs his father’s care. 

An off-duty policewoman calls in the incident,

on-duty Police arrive (why there are six I don’t know, but I’m betting it was a quiet afternoon, several petrol cars happened to be nearby and each responded)

Police quickly decide the incident warrants no further action but warn the father that it is illegal to discipline children using force.

So, what’s the problem here?  Would Farrar prefer that members of the public witnessing prima facie crimes not report them?  Would he prefer that the Police don’t respond to such reports?  Did the Police not interpret the law precisely as Parliament intended?  Did any innocent party receive punishment from the State? 

No, of course not.  Just another clumsy Farrar beat-up  (excuse the pun)

What is interesting the last paragraph of The Press article (funny how its often the last paragraph which is the most balanced and enlightening, and also the first to be cut if editors run out of space):

“A police spokeswoman said a review since the amendment found that between June and September last year police were called to three smacking incidents and 12 minor acts of physical discipline. The 15 cases were determined to be “inconsequential” and not worth prosecuting, although nine warnings were issued.”  

So much for National and Family Fist’s predictions that removing the right to smack would see thousands of ordinary kiwi parents in court.  Seems the law is working: people are no longer turning a blind eye to adults assaulting children and the Police are not prosecuting inconsequential cases.  Thanks Sue.

One Last One Before Christmas

 

It makes you think.

A society that puts a priority on ensuring people can find work with decent conditions is one that suffers less from the social symptoms of deprivation and poverty that we call crime.

Compulsory partisan comment: Under National unemployment averaged 8% and recorded crime averaged 1261 per 10,000 population.  Under the Labour-led Governments unemployment has averaged 4.6% and crime 1069. 

You want a lower crime society with people in work?  The Left is the way to go.

Blissfully ignorant about the blitz

It’s getting even weirder over at Davey’s place.

As Zos pointed out earlier, DPF had an odd reaction to a commenter (mildly) suggesting drinking booze before driving (although remaining within the limit) might sit uncomfortably with the overall anti-drink driving message. DPF took it all very seriously.

Amazingly, so did his banana-munching readers. In fact, Redbaiter was so outraged he actually tried to make a substantive point! I know! Shocking. But then, when you’ve re-read the comment, you realise why Red makes so few  substantive points and intead prefers ad hominen and plain rant. But for you edification, here’s what Red said about drink driving ‘blitzes’:

No no no no no no no no. No stopping citizens for suspicionless checks. Mr. Farrar, you have put so much energy into a campaign to stop the EFB. Don’t you see where it all starts? It starts with the government diminishing and attacking basic rights, and in this case its the rights of law abiding citizens to go about their business without being stopped at checkpoints.

You’re right of course to be concerned about drunk drivers, but this is not the way to deal with it. A gummint that abides by basic freedoms would not be constructing such anti-freedom legislation as the EFB. By allowing these checkpoints, you gave them the inch, and therefore you cannot complain when they then take the expected mile.

Deal harshly with drunk driving if you must, but you cannot complain about the EFB on one hand, and then call for more suspicionless checks on law abiding citizens on the other. You must be consisitent in your limiting of government power and respecting citizens rights, and that consistency starts at the most basic levels.

“Suspicionless checks”??? Obviously Red doesn’t understand that driving is a dangerous activity that, like welding, operating cranes or firing weapons, requires a demonstration of competence in order to be licensed.

The government routinely uses proactive checks on these and all manner of other licensed activities to ensure on-going compliance and safety. Clearly prosecuting after something goes horribly wrong is not only costly and inefficient - it also means someone has to suffer first (the victim).

Personally, I am quite comfortable with licensees being periodically checked and for those who demonstrate they no longer can be trusted with that license have some sort of sanction taken against them. I mean, I would hate to have cranes falling about our cities or restaurants churning out toxic food before we even bother to check them or to prosecute.

Detecting and prosecuting offending ex ante is a bloody effective way of keeping us (the general public) safe. To equate this kind of licence checking with unwarranted searches or, even more bizarrely, the Electoral Finance Bill, really shows Redbaiter’s limited thinking.

Hmmmm:Paragon of free speech?

I see (using the frankly astonishingly brilliant Aggregator) that DPF recently deleted a comment from Ghost Who Walks. I only realised there had been a deletion when AndrewW referred to. It was only after Andrew’s reference that DPF came clean about the deletion. GWW’s comment was in response to DPF’s little post about being stopped at a drink-driving stop.

So what was GWW’s heinous crack? Well, all he suggested was that Davey’s action of having a few whiskeys before driving seemed to sit uncomfortably with the, “if you drink and drive you’re a bloody idiot,” campaign of a few year’s ago. I don’t think GWW was being too offensive about the point and I don’t really understand DPF’s sensitivity. DPF’s post was about how we should be doing more to stop drunk drivers and yet he admits to consuming hard liquor before driving (albeit responsibly). I would have thought it totally legitimate for DPF to argue back at GWW that he had indeed acted responsibly and managed his pre-driving drinking to ensure he did not breach the law. Similarly, I think GWW might have been well-placed to argue that DPF should not have drunk at all prior to driving - especially given his party’s tough stance on law and order and DPF’s minor celebrity particular with young students. But instead DPF simply and quietly tried to delete the comment. For the co-founder of the campaign for free speech, this seems more than a little heavy-handed.