This extraordinary interview by David Fisher at the NZ Herald with Garth McVicar is truly terrifying.
McVicar, who we are to assume knew he was on the record with a journalist and was being recorded has come out and said some of the most unbelievable bullshit in regards to the science behind crime that it is actually terrifying.
I say terrifying because this maniac has done more to warp, mutate and damage our justice system than any other person in NZ over the last two decades.
Science in crime and justice is bunkum and politicians should discard “academics and those type of people” in favour of the public voice, says the Sensible Sentencing Trust’s Garth McVicar.
That’s his take on the heavily researched, deeply referenced report published by the Prime Minister’s chief science adviser, Sir Peter Gluckman, into our criminal justice system.
In an extraordinary interview, McVicar ridiculed scientifically backed evidence and told Minister of Justice Andrew Little he had his “ammunition ready” to bring the Government down after a single term if bail and sentencing changes were rolled back.
McVicar rejects the notion the scientific research is correct and warns about seeking out the same expert advice relied on before the Sensible Sentencing Trust emerged.
As McVicar tells it – and this is in contradiction to the graphs, statistics and peer-reviewed research in Gluckman’s report – academics and scientists had led New Zealand into a crime-ridden society until the “evolution” of the Sensible Sentencing Trust.
“How can Gluckman be right when all he’s doing is going back to prior 2001 or 2000? How can he be right?”
McVicar says – and Gluckman’s report says this is not true – longer sentences, tougher bail laws and making parole more difficult to obtain have led to the fall in our crime rate.
Gluckman’s report was simply the chief science adviser “running off his mouth without having any conclusive evidence to prove what he had to say”.
McVicar doesn’t accept the report and says the 149 inter-linked research references “don’t support what he’s saying”.
Of the report, written with clinical psychologist and University of Auckland associate professor Ian Lambie, McVicar says: “You can twist figures around to put the spin on that you want and that appears to us what he’s done.
“They listened to science for 20-30 years before the evolution of Sensible Sentencing, didn’t they, and you couldn’t say that worked any which way you twisted it.”
On the dogma versus data – public opinion versus science – McVicar is clear who ministers should listen to.
“The voice of public opinion. I don’t think Gluckman saying [going] back to producing scientific reports and graphs and whatnot … is proving anything at all.”
Gluckman’s report says our falling crime rate stemmed from lower property crime, mainly because of better security – more CCTV, better lighting in streets, the difficulty of stealing modern cars, and other factors.
Likewise, new policing strategies have also had an impact.
The report says: “This is completely at odds with the populist assumption that it is by putting specific offenders into larger prisons that crime will fall.”
…McVicar is an anti-science lunatic who refuses point blank to look at the evidence in favour of bringing back the bloody death penalty. He is a ghoul, he has manipulated anger and hate and warped social policy into spite.
That this fanatic is given any air time whatsoever after this extraordinary interview should be called out immediately. He can’t be allowed to participate in the debate any longer, he’s closed to reason.
He’s the problem now.
Garth McVicar is to reasonable social policy on prisons what ISIS is to inter-faith dialogue.
He can not be allowed to have media platform any longer, this is beyond lunacy.
Not only is his fanaticism revealed for what it is, this sanctimonious prick has the audacity to threaten to bring down the new Government if they dare attempt to unpick the damage his victim porn crusades have created.
He has fed upon and whipped up anger and fear to create social policy that is spiteful and corrupted. His thirst for vengeance over justice has led NZ into a dark place and his anti-intellectualism and almost gleeful ignorance of facts and truth rule him out from the debate.
Garth McVicar is a cancer, you can’t debate with cancer.
The Unsensible Sentencing Trust and Garth the ‘Macca’ Vicar (Golden Arches style), they are blind, unaware, as their fake Christianity, misguided ‘Christian compassion’, only deserving to victims, they do not see yet, that they are close to receiving the Worst Sentence of All. That is condemnation to HELL.
That is due to their blindness and ignorance and even wilful ignorance of the true concept of mercy and forgiveness, one key concept that is part of the New Testament and its mission.
So they cannot forgive, believe in harsh punishment, they are more like the Pharisees of old, in the bible, they are the hardhearted, the ones who judge, judge and judge again.
Garth belongs to the ones shouting and ranting, but when confronted by one Jesus, challenging him and others, to throw the first stone, they will cowardly walk away, yet not change their hearts and thoughts.
Sad really, Garth, you deserve better, learn to understand true Christianity, thanks.
Yes agreed;
Garth McVicar promotes hate as a course of his mission to drive a hard right policy in everything he has done to date.
He is a school yard bully for sure, Martyn.
The Victorians found that harsher punishments, including long prison sentences, did not reduce crime.
Crime reduction occurred mainly through the introduction of a government operated professional police force.
McVicar seldom mentions policing in his pro-prison rants. Perhaps he thinks that the old medieval system of bounty hunters is better?
If he got the kind of prison sentences he wanted and crime still continued to rise he would probably be advocating the death penalty.
Whoa there, Judge Death… are you sure about this? Is that a typo of some sort? Bit backwards, you trippin, dog? Is this the mirror verse with evil spock and the Terran Empire? Just what is that about, please explain
Thing is, Lolbagz, Spock was logical in both universes.
McVicar, on the other hand…
I really like your views, MB. But why do you so quickly adopt this illiberal, censorious tendency? Aren’t you – quite rightly – still smarting about being banned from RNZ for daring to venture a then-unpopular opinion in robust language?
It is precisely by hearing what McVicar has to say that most of us recognize he’s a lunatic, especially when he’s up against someone who has evidence based solutions and evidence based proof that his ‘solutions’ are incorrect.
Surely the only way to reduce crime is to address the root causes of it?
Things like poverty, lack of education, discrimination and marginalisation, mental health etc etc.
Mr McVicar’s views represent the paddy wagon at the bottom of the cliff – a harsh, punitive response that does nothing to address the actual problem.
Good job David Fisher. I could not believe what I was reading . How does this fucker get away with this shit?
Why does he have the ear of government?
He is an ignorant fascist.
McVicar gets away with this because for years the MSM have been giving him oxygen – he’s the person to go to for a predictable comment.
Sure he’s probably a crackpot but he does a good job stirring up people’s fears, saying that we are soft on crime – blaming academics and researchers for a crime-ridden society, and now threatening to bring down the govt if it doesn’t do what he wants.
His lack of humanity is more chilling than his ignorance.
Most prisoners are Maori; about 90% have intractable mental health issues. What we should be shouting about is how the hell did we get to where we are ? And why ?
And how the hell is prison helping them? In most cases zilch.
Many, if not most, come from homes which make Stephen King movies look like vicarage tea parties.
Many, if not most,should have had other help, not just to stop them ending up as prison inmates, but to have something approximating a normal regular self-respecting sort of life, but neoliberalism is v ruthless about behaving decently. In fact, it pops them into prison knowing they’ll likely pop out worse. Its very sick.
Even sicker are the McVicars, and Hobson’s Choicers and Kim Kolonis who play on people’s fears and greeds in ways that do absolutely nothing to help to create a healthy society, but sow fear and dissent.
Shame on them.
“Sure he’s probably a crackpot but he does a good job stirring up people’s fears”
That’s only half the reason he’s great copy for the news media; it’s not just that he stirs up fear among the ‘law and order’ crowd, but also because he draws predictable outrage from the left. It’s win-win when they publish.
Gen Y and millennials are so damaged by the education system that we can’t even reason with them, and perhaps even gen Z. They just can’t think for themselves and I think that’s a dangerous phenomenon. They’ve been trained to think in terms of decipline and kindness so when they’re confronted with a nut job it’s like they have to agree to rationalise the behaviour by using taxes or academic impressiveness to curb behaviour. And I think that’s a dangerous phenomenon.
Some time we have to except that WE are the ones in the wrong and let them develop on there own with out outside influence. So if AUT students say they want there library. I think it’s incumbent on the rest of us to do that and not use financial impressiveness as an excuse not to.
That “interview” is not to be found. (HOW COME?)
Has some sort of “spin” been put on it and readers are now unable /cannot exercise their own judgement by referring back to it?
(possibly yes)
Until I hear it with my own ears, I reserve judgement.
Hmmm.. On a different Note, but still relevant,
Do you honestly trust NZ’s Judicial System? (lol)
Have you per chance ever noticed how sex offenders (from all strata) are all TOO often these days awarded “incognito” status???
Even when found into child porn (!!!!)
Maybe you need to have a serious think about this..
[…] at the bewildering animosity Garth MvVicar, the man who has shaped corrections policy the most over the last two decades, has towards any […]
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