crime

Categories under crime

Insulting

Written By: - Date published: 4:58 pm, October 1st, 2008 - 139 comments

David Farrar really is a disgusting person at times. He writes that we shouldn’t look at overall crime rates (although he made a big fuss when the overall recorded crime rate went up because of changes in recording practice in 2006). Instead we should just look at violent crime, after all “having 1,000 less [sic] […]

Crime falls again

Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, October 1st, 2008 - 26 comments

Crime fell 1% in the last year from 1025 recorded crimes per 10,000 people to 1014. This is part of a pattern that has continued since National was booted from power and living conditions for the poor started to improve. The only big increase after 2000 you see in this graph (05-06) is a result […]

Nats’ ‘NZ sucks’ campaign continues

Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, September 26th, 2008 - 39 comments

I remember the first time I met Simon Power, when he had just come into Parliament. He struck me as a man who would be a future leader of National and an excellent one at that – articulate, informed, and moderate. Oh, what he has let himself become over 9 years in opposition – just […]

Did you pay the tax, John?

Written By: - Date published: 6:38 am, September 24th, 2008 - 34 comments

Generally, when you buy capital and later sell it, there is no tax payable on any profit. Unless you buy with the propose of selling the capital for a profit. That being the case, your buying and selling of the capital is engaging in an activity to generate income and tax is payable. It is […]

Causes and effects

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, August 30th, 2008 - 47 comments

A series of graphs from the Social Report. First off, the unemployment rate When the unemployment goes up or down, the practical effect is a decrease or increase in household incomes as the country got poorer under National, unemployment rose, incomes fell, and and the poverty rate rose, compounded by National’s cut benefits and its choice […]

Social Report shows Kiwis better off

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, August 28th, 2008 - 31 comments

MSD released its Social Report today, an annual publication that collates a wide variety of standard of living measures, and produces this awesome graph. The circle represents the status quo in 1995-97 each spoke represents a different measure (income, crimes per capita etc). If the spoke is longer than the circle than the measure has improved between 1995-97 […]

Break-in

Written By: - Date published: 1:03 pm, August 7th, 2008 - 18 comments

This just in from Radio NZ: Police are investigating a break-in at the electorate office of a senior Labour MP, David Cunliffe, in Auckland. Nothing was taken in the burglary but Mr Cunliffe’s computer was apparently tampered with. Mr Cunliffe’s office has confirmed a complaint has been made to the police about the incident. Meanwhile, […]

Anti-abuse law in action

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, July 16th, 2008 - 40 comments

A front page story on Stuff at the moment is about a woman who systematically beat her child and has been successfully prosecuted and placed on home detention. According to the story the Tauranga mother’s initial excuse was that she was disciplining her child: When spoken to by police in February, Nelson admitted she sometimes […]

Roy puts Police informants at risk

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, June 27th, 2008 - 12 comments

ACT is turning to increasingly desperate attempts to win media attention. Raising Roger Douglas from the dead didn’t work (he only got 6 people to come to his latest speech). Now, Heather Roy has named a police informant in Parliament. This pathetic attempt to raise a petty scandal has put the life of the informant […]

Calls for Police State ultimate admission of failure

Written By: - Date published: 6:32 am, June 26th, 2008 - 46 comments

Michael Laws has called for ‘draconian, central measures’ to fight gangs; he wants the army called out. He wants military force let loose on our streets to engage in combat with an undefined enemy. Where are we? Iraq? That way lies dictatorship, military rule, the end of our freedom. If we don’t want kids going […]

A foolish promise

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, June 23rd, 2008 - 11 comments

Simon Power promises a new prison in a National government’s first term. What a glib and foolish statement. Had he paused to reflect before his opening his mouth, Power would have realised this cannot be done. Gaining cabinet approval, identifying a site, completing the resource consent process, running a tender process, and building the prison […]

Old man’s law

Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, June 20th, 2008 - 62 comments

Frogblog has footage of Nandor Tanczos blasting the Government’s anti-tagging legislation and noting that “Judith Collins would be screaming about the nanny state if we tried to tell her that she had to keep her Chardonnay under lock and key.” Sounds like Hone Harawira was in fine form too: “Tagging is ugly and offensive and […]

National ‘bereft of compassion’

Written By: - Date published: 4:44 pm, June 16th, 2008 - 36 comments

That is the reported view of the secretary of the Sikh Council of New Zealand in response to some attention grabbing behaviour from National Manakau East candidate in the wake of the tragic shooting of Natjev Singh. Specifically the article says: Mr Verpal Singh said they were “utterly disappointed at a singular lack of understanding […]

Why is reported violent crime up?

Written By: - Date published: 5:02 pm, June 13th, 2008 - 40 comments

As you know, crime is down in New Zealand, which is not surprising – crime is a symptom of social deprivation and we’ve had eight years of high employment and rising incomes easing that deprivation. But reported violent crime is up. Why? One reason is 35% of the increase is in the “threats and intimidation” […]

Two stories on crime in Christchurch

Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, May 15th, 2008 - 8 comments

Christchurch hosted a public meeting on crime within the city last week. But the thing that caught my eye, despite the very laudable aim, was how National MP, Nicky Wagner, managed to present two contrasting opinions on the state of crime in the Garden City, in close succession: I do think the statistics are sometimes […]

Bring back the bash?

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, May 15th, 2008 - 74 comments

A man has been convicted of assault for hitting his daughter because she was dating a Muslim. You can’t assault someone, the law worked. Good, right? OK. Now, let’s imagine that this had taken a place a year ago and the daughter, who is 20 years old, was 15 instead and, so, a child in […]

Kurariki on home detention

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, May 6th, 2008 - 75 comments

No doubt, there will be hollow cries of outrage from Simon Power and Sensible Sentencing over Bailey Kurariki being transferred from jail to home detention for the last months of his sentence. Kurariki has been in jail for five years, since he was 12. His sentence expires in six months. By moving Kurariki to a […]

Simon’s semantics

Written By: - Date published: 10:11 am, May 2nd, 2008 - 16 comments

Never one to miss an opportunity to stir up fear over crime, Simon Power now wants us to believe that we’re less safe because of the rise of “violent offenders” being granted home detention. As is increasingly common inside his caucus, he’s hoping that we’ll overlook the detail. The background is that in the last […]

Mythbusting: Crime is down, not up

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, May 1st, 2008 - 67 comments

It’s hard to know why people keep interviewing Garth McVicar from Sensible Sentencing. The organisation has no credibility, no research every statement on policy is really just ‘Garth guesses X’. And of course, they made those disgusting comments around the death of Pihema Cameron. Nevertheless, he was on National Radio this morning regarding new stats […]

Repeating the mistakes of others

Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, April 29th, 2008 - 13 comments

Remember National’s policy of charging a $50 levy on everyone convicted of or, maybe, charged with (Key keeps on mixing up the terms) an offence? Remember all the obvious problems with it enforcement, administration cost, natural justice issues, the pitiful size of the sum that would be collected? Well, it turns out we missed one. […]

Tough on crime, tough on the parents

Written By: - Date published: 9:25 pm, April 12th, 2008 - 2 comments

Crime, whether static or out of control, is going to be part of our election year “top ten”. I suspect National’s $50 fine policy didn’t quite get the glowing endorsments they were hoping for (see why here). So when I spotted this story at the Guardian, I thought it looked just like a new National […]

Sensible Sentencing: Disgusting

Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, April 8th, 2008 - 80 comments

The Sensible Sentencing Trust is a backward, reactionary organisation at the best of times but this is a new low. Responding to comments Children’s Commissioner Dr Cindy Kiro made about tagging, Sensible Sentencing’s Garth McVicar said ‘Her comments are hugely provocative at a time when a decent hard working citizen is facing a murder charge […]

“Frankly, it’s a market”

Written By: - Date published: 3:33 pm, April 3rd, 2008 - 9 comments

That’s what Key said when asked about his plan to increase GP fees. A reader reckons Key’s planning to apply the same market logic to crime: Great cartoon. No wonder National’s Law and order Spokesperson, Simon Power, is distancing himself from Key’s policy.

Crime continues to fall

Written By: - Date published: 12:28 pm, April 1st, 2008 - 15 comments

The latest Police statistics show crime is still dropping. Crime dropped from 1013 offences per 10,000 people in 2006 to 1008 in 2007. There was a dramatic reduction in homicides (down 10.1%, following a 10.2% drop in 2006), sex attacks were down 2.3%, and ‘Dishonesty’ offences, including thefts and burglaries, fell 5.1%. There is also […]

National’s victims policy

Written By: - Date published: 12:38 pm, March 31st, 2008 - 5 comments

National has proposed several initiatives around victims’ rights, most of which are based on policy already under development by the Ministry of Justice. Sure to gain media attention is the ‘Victims’ Compensation Scheme’ to be funded from a levy of $50 on every convicted offender. This is meant to fund victims’ costs ‘such as travel […]

Nats talk up crime, policy absent

Written By: - Date published: 5:04 pm, March 19th, 2008 - 20 comments

As part of its ‘New Zealand sucks’ campaign, National is on its high horse over an international survey that shows New Zealand’s crime victimisation rate is one of the higher ones in a group of 30 developed countries. Comparing crime levels across countries is bloody hard because of different laws, reporting practices, and reporting rates […]

Good news

Written By: - Date published: 4:05 pm, February 16th, 2008 - 16 comments

Stuff reports the stolen military medals have been returned. I had expected they would never be seen again but when I think about it nearly every high-profile theft of art or artifact I can remember has resulted a successful return. Kudos to the police for making sure we get to keep a part of our […]

Who’ll run John’s boot camps?

Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, January 30th, 2008 - 70 comments

The Army has said it doesn’t want to run National’s boot camps – they prefer to train people who actually want to be there. So the question now is who do they plan to get to do it? They’re not saying much at the moment, but Key’s new policy does leave the door open for […]

Key speech: strategic blunder?

Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, January 29th, 2008 - 113 comments

So this is John Key’s ambition: throwing troubled teens in boot camp, beating up on beneficiaries and criminalising our children. I’ve only had a quick read through the speech in my lunch break so it’s possible I’ve got this wrong, but I get the distinct impression that Key has made a major strategic error here. […]

Key Karaoke

Written By: - Date published: 5:20 pm, December 7th, 2007 - 53 comments

Check out this fantastic karaoke clip from Ali Ikram on Sunrise this morning. Lyrics below: I know this song might sound like “Clocks” But I assure you that it’s not Just a bunch of random notes we composed to attract your votes Sent 10,000 DVDs so you could get to know John Key PS. if […]

Crime: out of control?

Written By: - Date published: 3:07 pm, November 1st, 2007 - 59 comments

John Key made a speech to the Police Association today proposing a whole raft of new police powers, ranging from banning gangs to taking DNA samples from anyone who is arrested, regardless of whether they’re found guilty or innocent. To justify these proposed new powers he relied heavily on the subtext that crime is out […]

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