Depressing burglary stats

Press columnist Peter Luke highlighted some depressing statistics on burglaries this week (not online).

Although the upper North Island continues to be New Zealand’s burglary capital, there were 7033 burglaries reported in Canterbury (population about 450, 000) last year with only 15.6 percent burglars being caught. In central Auckland the burglary rate is about 130 burglaries per 10, 000 residents.

Perhaps the most worrying statistic is the low number of burglars being apprehended, which although higher than in the late 90s, is stubbornly stuck at below 20 percent.

One of the reasons why New Zealand had a low property crime rate in the past was because it was a small, mono-cultural and well-organised country in which it was difficult for criminals to avoid being caught. Now that burglars are increasingly aware they have an excellent chance of getting away with burglaries, they may be more inclined to commit them.

The use of burglar alarms and private security firms seems to be helping check burglaries in affluent areas, but there is little (other than dangerous dogs) to deter burglars in low to mid-income areas, with students in particular, being frequent victims of break-ins.

New Zealand, like Britain, also has a relatively low rate of gun ownership. By constrast, burglary rates in the pro-gun United States are comparitively low, and significantly fewer burglars attempt to break in houses when they are occupied.

Criminality and voting

An issue that doesn’t seem to be discussed much in this part of the world, is whether convicted criminals should be allowed to vote.

In New Zealand convicted criminals serving a sentence of three years or more are unable to vote, but in the US, all prisoners, and ex-prisoners on parole, are barred from voting in most states.

It’s been estimated that preventing criminals serving sentences from voting may well have had a significant impact on the outcome of some state and national elections. For example, the Democrats may well have lost the 2004 presidential elections, because 400,000 Black males in the crucial state of Florida were unable to vote due to criminal convictions (in Florida both currently serving, and previously convicted, felons are barred from voting).

Although criminals are likely to have a high rate of apathy in regard to voting, their low socio-economic status means they are much more likely to vote for centre-left parties than those on the centre-right.

With centre-right parties in many western countries struggling to come up with ways of taking the initiative away from the centre-left,  perhaps those with liberal voting laws (such as Canada, and a number of European states) should take a leaf from America, and consider restricting voting rights to law-abiding citizens only.

Attacks on students

Aussie political commentator Andrew Bolt points out that the majority of recent "racist" attacks on Indian students are actually non-racially motivated criminal attacks committed by recent immigrants from non-western countries.

Rather than being a sign of racism by "redneck" mainstream Australians, as the mainstream media is suggesting, the increase in attacks is at least partly due to political correctness, with the hamstrung police failing to effectively crack down on the perpetrators for fear of offending other non-white minorities.

It seems that the Australian media is intent on making up for Australia's previous White Australia Policy with a new blame white Australia policy.

A fairly similar situation occurred in New Zealand last year, when Asian shop keepers were involved in a protest against attacks on Asian shops by Pacific Island immigrants, with the protestors claiming the attacks weren't being taken seriously enough by the police.

Putting aside the issue of whether there's been an increase in racially motivated attacks, I'm getting the impression that crime against overseas students is on the increase in many western countries.

From an underclass perspective, overseas students are a tempting target since they are perceived as being easily physically intimidated and often share the same neighborhoods where cheap housing is available. Inevitably, they also tend to be more naive than locals about what areas to avoid and in what sort of situations they are most likely to get into trouble.

When I lived near a student area in Manchester in northern England, there were lots of reports of students being mugged, with one group of young Pakistani men becoming so bold as to hold up individual students at knife or air pistol point and then take them on enforced shopping sprees around various parts of the city.

Domestic students from other parts of Britain were also targeted quite frequently (Manchester has a high population of students from the more affluent south of England) with an increasing number of attacks on female students by taxi drivers, being reported in the local media.

Closer to home, I recently heard on the radio that Christchurch Police have reported burglaries are up in the student-dwelling areas in the west of the city, with local crims perceiving students to be a bit blase about home security.

Double standards from TVNZ

Over the last few weeks the popular UK documentary series Ross Kemp on Gangs has been screening on New Zealand TV and I've found it quite eye opening.

For example, I knew Jamaica had quite a high crime rate, but I had no idea that the nation's capital, Kingston is arguably the most violent city in the world (for the size of its population).

Unfortunately though, the episode on gangs and football violence in Poland, was a bit disappointing. In the show Kemp interviews a neo-Nazi skinhead, who doesn't speak any English, about his about his political views and reasons for engaging in soccer violence. Naturally, the youth doesn't have many intelligent things to say, and Kemp looks suitably disgusted by his predictable opinions about Jews and other races. Kemp also fails to ask the most obvious question, and the first one I would have asked - "why do you like a guy like Hitler, who killed so many Polish people? "

Anyway, Kemp then turns up at a football match where a neo-Nazi gang is clashing with a rival non-Nazi nationalist gang, and very briefly interviews an English-speaking non- Nazi nationalist whose face is concealed by a bandana. The young gang member, who appears more intelligent that the neo-Nazi interviewed earlier, then states that the two groups often fight each other after matches, but have significantly different ideologies

Now to my mind, it would have been interesting to interview one of these non-Nazi nationalist gang members, and find out what their views were, and why they disliked the neo-Nazi skinheads, particularly since the former appeared more typical of the average Polish gang member. Unfortunately though, the programme appears to be more about creating shock value than looking into the attitudes and habits of the typical gang member and what makes them tick.

Certainly one episode of the series has been viewed a little too shocking for local audiences by Television New Zealand. On Radio Live this week Michael Laws said TVNZ has decided not to play an episode about the New Zealand Mongrel Mob.

It seems it's ok to look at other country's gang problems in a slightly sensationalised way, but politically correct TVNZ isn't keen on the same treatment for New Zealand's indigenous underclass.

Why New Zealand Still Needs More Prisons

In a bid to reduce the cost of dealing with criminals the Government has decided to give judges the option of issuing home detentions for minor criminal offenses.

However, the only proven way of reducing crime rates is to threaten more offenders with imprisonment.

In the United States and Continental Europe, high incarceration rates have led to a significant reduction in crime rates. Conversely, a shortage of prison spaces in Britain and New Zealand is undermining police efforts to get tough in criminals.

New Zealand is one of the toughest places in the world to commit a crime without getting caught, but it also has some of the softest sentencing.

The logic of imprisonment is simple - if criminals are locked up then they can't commit crimes. There is also the deterrence aspect to imprisonment. Although many people argue that prisons are much softer than they used to be, the inmates are still pretty unpleasant. The threat of getting raped in a prison shower (or worse) is always going to make a lot of minor criminals think twice about breaking the law.

While some neo-conservatives question the cost-effectiveness of imprisonment, liberals argue that prison degrades the individual. This may be true, but it depends on your priorities - reducing crime or rehabilitiation. If its the former, then build more prisons.

Ultimately there are only two types of serious penalties - imprisonment or physical punishment. To a criminal, a fine is an empty threat unless a judge is willing and able to send them to prison for not paying one.

Alternative punishments like home detentions may be useful, but only if they are backed up by the threat of stronger penalties. If someone repeatedly breaks the conditions of a home detention then there must be a prison space to which they can be sent.

Just because imprisonment rates are already high does not mean imprisonment doesn't work. Sure, we should be doing more to tackle rising inequality, and inequality is a significant factor in crime rates.

But we can't just go easy on those that have already lapsed into a criminal lifestyle.

In the 1950s when crime rates were at record low levels, society was a lot more egalitarian (in economic terms) but it was also more authoritarian.

Prisons may be unsightly, they may be costly, but they actuallly work - thats why we need more of them and shouldn't moan about paying for them.

The costs of crime are continually being passed onto law-abiding ctitzens through increased taxes, rates, rents and insurance priemiums. Investing in prisons will save taxpayers money in the long run.