Key slippery on crime

Written By: - Date published: 11:07 am, August 26th, 2010 - 22 comments
Categories: crime, john key - Tags:

From John Key’s speech to the Sensible Sentencing Trust yesterday:

“We’ve already got 271 out of 300 new Police officers in the Counties-Manukau district, and the rest have been recruited and are in training. The boost in Police numbers is making a difference too.

The Police in Counties-Manukau can be far more proactive because there are far more of them. For example, robberies in that district are down 52 per cent. House burglaries are down 31 per cent. And there’s been a 34 per cent drop in stolen vehicles.

That’s good news and I believe more is possible as the extra Police we are deploying really make their presence felt on our streets.”

You’ve always got to be suspicious when you see partial stats like this. Why is Key referring to a couple very precise classes of crime, why not all crime? It’s a bit like Bill English’s use of a sub-section of wage earners’ incomes to claim all wages are going up.

So, I went to the source. And guess what, crime is skyrocketing in Counties Manukau.

In 2009, the crime rate in Counties Manukau rose 6.9%, that’s twice the already awful 3.5% nationwide increase (which correlates with the unemployment increase, btw).

I’m not against the government saying it has boosted wages and brought down crime. I just wish that it was true.

22 comments on “Key slippery on crime ”

  1. Tigger 1

    Particularly galling considering who he was addressing, they’re a group created out of a desire to see certain crimes in particular punished harder – what sort of crime? Oh, like violence and sexual crimes – both of which increased in CM in 2009…

    So why didn’t the SST nail him on this?

    • Lanthanide 1.1

      The SST doesn’t care about reducing crime, they care about locking up criminals. While they are similar ideas, you shouldn’t get them confused.

      • Armchair Critic 1.1.1

        Indeed, their name gives it away – “Sentencing”. They focus on the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, as opposed to improving the fence at the top.
        Actually, it seems like SST don’t believe in an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff at all.

        • Draco T Bastard 1.1.1.1

          If we could see who donates to them I think we’d find that they fully support private prisons which, to be a growing business, needs more people locked up for longer.

  2. The old smoke and mirriors trick.

  3. bbfloyd 3

    so we can expect to see a new campaign launched by the herald highlighting our “out of control” crime? what do you mean no?

    • burt 3.1

      last time they did that we had to endure days of being told that it was a result of the full moon, hot weather and of course just more reporting but in reality crime was decreasing…

      Nothing changes, self serving major parties are too dim to remmember that the claim and the defense are the same only they swapped sides.

      • Richard 3.1.1

        burt: Nothing changes, self serving major parties are too dim to remmember that the claim and the defense are the same only they swapped sides.

        It’s not that the parties are too dim to remember this. It’s that the parties think that you (and me), the public, are too dim/apathetic to remember/care.

        Generally, they are right.

        • bbfloyd 3.1.1.1

          you can add the pressure to keep body and soul together to the mix as well now. for the first time in my memory, i know of no-one, tradesman or whatever, who isn’t under the hammer just to keep up with the cost of living.(with mixed success) they just don’t have the time, or energy to waste on stuff that most of them feel helpless to do anything about.
          a few amongst those are afraid to let the pressure show for fear of becoming one of the growing numbers of corrections “clients”.
          how close are we to fearing our own leaders????? when one looks at the kind of groups that support this approach, and with it, an administration that is implementing policies designed to do no more than imprison larger numbers of people, maybe we should be nervous…

        • Rex Widerstrom 3.1.1.2

          the parties think that you (and me), the public, are too dim/apathetic to remember/care

          There is that, But there’s also the fact that a surprisingly large number of our fellow NZers are sadistic little people who seem to derive pleasure from the fact that those in our jails are made to suffer. Just listen to talkback, read the Herald’s comments section or Kiwiblog anytime crime is mentioned 🙁

          • Richard 3.1.1.2.1

            There is that, But there’s also the fact that a surprisingly large number of our fellow NZers are sadistic little people who seem to derive pleasure from the fact that those in our jails are made to suffer…

            I would consider such little people to count as “dim”, or perhaps the “useful idiots” of the right.

          • felix 3.1.1.2.2

            “Just listen to talkback, read the Herald’s comments section or Kiwiblog anytime crime is mentioned”

            Oh come on Rex, you just described Matthew Hooten, Greg O’Connor, and half a dozen fuckwits from Christchurch.

            Real kiwis don’t think like that. And real kiwis don’t spend all day phoning talkback and commenting on Kiwiblog.

            • Rex Widerstrom 3.1.1.2.2.1

              I’m sure real kiwis have better things to do than hang out on blogs etc felix. But go talk to those who do spend their time drinking in the local Workingmens Club, RSA or any pub outside the CBD or upper socioeconomic suburbs.

              I truly wish I could share your optimism about what “real kiwis” think, but alas I’ve spoken to too many of them 🙁 It’s by no means an overwhelming majority but more than enough to form a sizeable voting bloc. And unfortunately those who think opposite to them are too politically fractured to form a cohesive opposition.

              • felix

                Bollocks. You’ve wildly misjudges the kind of places I drink in.

                This sizable voting block you describe, would that be the 3.6% who voted for the SST’s political wing at the last election?

                Or the ~1% they’re polling now?

                I’m not saying they don’t exist but they’re a bucket of fuck all in the grand scheme.

                p.s. I’m not kidding when I say they’re not real kiwis either. Real Kiwis aren’t bigots and they aren’t stupid.

                • Rex Widerstrom

                  I’d agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence, felix. But as for your stats… they don’t have to vote for Act when National’s PM and Minister are fawning at the SST’s conference and Labour is pushing them out of the way for the chance to prostrate themselves at the feet of Garth McVicar.

                  How much support do you think Act would pick up if it stuck by it’s law ‘n’ order policies yet both National and Labour agreed they’d no longer outbid one another on sentencing, would cancel the new prisons, and explore restorative justice options?

                  We’d have Rodney Hide (or maybe Heather Roy) as PM at the next election quicker than you can say “hang ’em high”, or at least holding a solid number of list seats and the balance of power.

                  BTW I wasn’t being snobby about the kind of places you drink in. I drank in them too… the Naenae RSA was a favourite watering hole, and I wasn’t unknown in the Petone Workingmens Club. I learned a lot of politics there, which I applied in engineering the rise in support for NZF. Which, as you’ll recall, wasn’t exactly on the back of liberal policies.

  4. randal 4

    crumble.
    nah the old bar of soap trick.

  5. As time goes by there is accumulating more and more evidence confirming why this Government cannot be trusted.

    It will be the perception and feeling which finally gets them.

    I can say with confidence that Key is no longer teflon coated and opposition attacks are causing more and more damage.

    To link to another posting where Farrar’s most important issue is how much Veuve Cliquot someone should get you know they are in trouble.

    • Dilbert 5.1

      Micky its the perception and feeling that gets all Governments in the end including the last Labour one. The question is how long will it take the people to perceive that this government is out of touch.

      I don’t think it will be before the next election and at the current rate 2014 seems only a possibility at best.

      • Draco T Bastard 5.1.1

        It’s not that this government is out of touch, although they are, it’s that they just don’t care about anyone with an income (I won’t say earning as Jonkey has never earned anything in his life) under ~$1m.

        • Dilbert 5.1.1.1

          While that opinion can be argued, equally the argument can be made that this Government has simply acted on the mandated provided to them by the voters who placed them in power.

          I believe that regardless what you and I may think personally is that the high rankings in the opinion polls the majority of voters still believe that the mandate is valid. The only way that is going to change is by an alternative mandate being offered to voters that seems more attractive to them which at this point the opposition parties seem incapable of doing.

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