I fucking love the way this NZ Herald article starts…
NZ youth offenders report reveals insight into Kiwi kids’ ‘crimewave’
It’s no surprise New Zealanders think there is a major youth crime epidemic in New Zealand.
…will stop you right there NZ Herald, the reason why so many Kiwis are terrified and furious at crime is because news organisations like the NZ Herald flood people with crime porn clickbait and people react emotionally to that.
Hard right politicians then come along and harvest that emotion with ‘get tough on crime’ rhetoric.
The Truth, I say the TRUTH the TRUTH is the despite the get tough on crime bullshit, youth crime is already dropping and continues…
But a Ministry of Justice report released this week shows that across the board, youth offending is steadily decreasing in New Zealand and there is less reoffending by young people.
…We had a spike with the Ram Raids because that was a release of Covid Lockdown pressures.
We have a unique class/race dimension with crime.
Alienated Māori and Pacifica youth stealing and causing violence to exploited Migrant Chinese and Indian dairies while the white suburbs clutch their pearls and cry, ‘something must be done’.
That ‘something’ is a legal system designed to punish rather than heal.
Voters are so whipped up by crime porn clickbait pushed through the ‘if it belles it leads’ mainstream media, they don’t just want incarceration, they want suffering.
We don’t care about the appalling conditions inside our prisons because we want prisoners to suffer.
Not rehabilitation, not earn redemption, not simply serve their sentence, no, in NZ we have a thirst for them to suffer driven by our wall to wall crime coverage.
The facts show us that youth crime has fallen DESPITE the tough on crime stuff, not because of it.
Look, you would not be human if you didn’t see the violence meted out to innocent victims and become immediately angry.
That’s normal and an acceptable response, but we are asked as citizens of a liberal progressive democracy to step back and consider the issue rationally and logically, not emotionally.
We never do that, we demand policy when we are angry and frightened.
I think we have to focus on 3 things when it comes to crime.
1: Our first focus has got to be ensuring the victim is returned as best we can to a place they were before the violence or theft occurred to them. Be that through free counselling, free physio, time off work to recuperate, full funding of any costs related to participating in the justice process. We have to step up for the victim and insulate them from the judicial process alongside providing whatever mental health and physical services are required to help the victim regain their dignity and repair the wrong done to them.
2: The safety of the wider community is paramount before any release. We must tie the prisoners inclusion in rehabilitation programmes inside prison to enable early parole. The prisoner must learn to self regulate themselves if they want to leave prison. They have to have been through rehabilitation programmes and talking therapy programmes before they are even considered for parole, but access to these programmes must be opened to all as opposed to the very small amount of prisoners who are eligible. We can not allow prisoners to be released into society if they haven’t had the opportunity to confront and face their issues inside rehab programmes.
And thirdly, and this is the most important, we have to heal these broken and damaged men. The incarceration and loss of one’s own liberty is the punishment, not the violence or corruption or underfunded shitty run down prison. If you want longer sentences, fine, but why on earth treat them like animals inside the prison? Why not spend that long sentence understanding themselves and the pain they’ve caused and give them the tools to pull themselves out?
We allow the damage to occur because we want them to suffer.
There are of course professional criminals and genuine sadistic psychopaths, but their crimes tend to highlight who they are and they get longer sentences in tougher prisons, but you can’t pretend the 20 000 prisoners National are planning to have as a prison muster in 2 years, many for much lesser crimes, are all professional criminals and genuine sadistic psychopaths.
I wonder if we are even capable of having a discussion about crime that isn’t more of the same failed counter-productive get tough on crime knuckle dragging mob justice rhetoric.
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TV news asks old white men in fairly well-heeled looking streets what they think about crime and they all say exactly the same. It’s dreadful, out of hand, we’re all going to be killed.
They get 3 of these old guys saying the same thing and gullible TV-news watching people, believe it.
They didn’t ask any women, or anyone under 70, or anyone living in a poor area.
It’s appallingly poor ‘news’ but people lap it up. You’d think a serious journalists could do better so obviously, they aren’t serious journalists.
Main-stream media cannot be trusted for the most basic reporting of news, they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near ‘opinion’.
Government is pushing for no parole unless they have been rehabilitated .The problem there is there is bugger all rehab going on in prisons right now .My daughter tells me this government caned a successful rehab program because it had a cultural base to it .One minute they say Maori are over represented in jails but the next they cut the rehab .So those prisoners that were doing that course are now doing no rehab and have more time on their hands to be recruited into the next gang upon release .
Where is the hysteria about white collar crime which is rising every week .The name says it all WHITE COLLAR ,if it was BROWN COLLAR ,we would have blazing head lines in every media out let in the country .
What on earth does that mean gw?
Brown man in white shirt white man in brown shirt it’s all the same to me.
because you are so dumb white collar crime is mostly committed by white people as Maori are over looked for those jobs because they brown .
If we wish to see a sustained reduction in crime, we need to stop funding the production of babies by the least capable and often most awful people in society.
You could try providing the resources so they can be good parents. My thought is that apart from poverty single parent families would be the next most difficult way to raise children to be model citizens. I am constantly surprised about people’s choice in partners and why they are irresponsible enough to perform the starting act when they have no intention of staying around to look after the end result. Obviously people do not all think rationally and various substances along with other entertainments mean that things just happen instead of being planned which is where the extra babies come from. I know that wealthy parents can also produce children who are a drain on society and that children raised on the dpb can be model citizens so I don’t know what special insight you have to be able to determine who are the “least capable and often most awful people in society”.
Bonnie once again you are correct .
I know several kids from wealthy families that have ended up in jail .The big ram raid in a major mall in Auckland was committed by rich prick kids in their flash cars .
Of course it depends on the individual, but overall statistics show that single parents on long term benefits are far more likely to produce future criminals than any other group. This is true in many western nations regardless of race.
In this country, if Maori want to reduce the gap between them and other groups, their men need to stay with their wives and children to protect them.
“we need to stop funding the production of babies by the least capable and often most awful people in society”
But Andrew, where will future ACT and National voters come from?
good comment but he is not talking about white privaledged spoilt brats from greenlane or tauranga is he .
Martyn – 501 gangs ARE causing problems…
@ MB writes above
” …will stop you right there NZ Herald, the reason why so many Kiwis are terrified and furious at crime is because news organisations like the NZ Herald flood people with crime porn clickbait and people react emotionally to that.”
“Hard right politicians then come along and harvest that emotion with ‘get tough on crime’ rhetoric.”
That, right there, is 100% correct.
And that is why the majority of AO/NZ’ers voted in a gangster clan of liars. They, the public, were gaslighted by an msm who were in turn bought by lobbyists to best represent our mortal enemies financial aspirations.
If I was a God botherer I’d say that was the very epitome of evil.
because you are so dumb white collar crime is mostly committed by white people as Maori are over looked for those jobs because they brown .
we have more crime in pure numbers but less per 1000 people .If you add 20% more people to your population it is simple to see you will have similar rise in crime and other things that are measured .
crime figures
2015 374 per 10k people
2014 237 per 10k people
so the media and nactnzf are spreading lies again and the dopey hobbits have jumped on the band wagon .
thats 2024 237 per 10k
Our similarities to America, teenage pregnancies, imprisonment rates, drunkenness and violence. All the Scots vices.
We need to go left field, like I hope my motherland has gone.
SNP are gone….so Scotland will survive, with wee Jimmy Krankie out of the picture Scotland will revert back to Labour.
SNP ruined Scotland during their time in control, obsessed with independence and ignored the people.
I get that at certain times it is acceptable to blame the media for large numbers of New Zealanders for being f’ing stupid, but I am not certain this is one of those times. Actual facts and statistics don’t seem to feature high enough on the scale of things to consider in forming opinions in this country. Perhaps it’s been that way for a long time.
when was the last time the media published the crime stats I provided above .Not hard to find so maybe thats the problem .
Facts have never cared about the Right’s feelings.
It’s such crap but it works every time. There’s an inexhaustible supply of (mostly) old idiots. Every time I hear the crap on my transistor radio while working I have a hearty laugh — so there’s that on the plus side as well.
And Luxon’s clown smiling face defending boot camps, knowing it’s utter bullshit, and all his social circle know it too. Don’t put aside that influence on a person.