Violent Crime up in Wellington
The Police stats out today shown crime overall down, but violent crime has risen. Violent crime is what most people want to be falling, rather than arrests for anti-social behaviour etc.
In Wellington violent crime went up 5.3% with almost 300 more offences.
Sometimes you need to even break the group categories down. Sexual offences dropped 5.1% but looking closer sexual attacks went up 6% and immoral behavior dropped 25%. Key thing is to look beyond the topline figures.
Much of the overall drop is due to 20% to 35% drop in drug offences. Now this does not mean there are less drugs – just less arrests. Again one needs to know the difference between a drop in crimes which have a victim/complainant and crimes which depend on police resources.
UPDATE: Antarctic Lemur has a good post highlighting that the major falls are in areas where numerous police officers had claimed they had been discouraged from pursuing, in order to keep the stats good.
August 25th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
Comparing Jordan Carters post on this topic (Great News! Crime is down!) with DPFs (above) explains why Fairfax ain’t to worried about bloggers driving them out of business any time soon.
August 25th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
Also note this is REPORTED crime.
Violent crimes are the real indicators of what is happening. People might have given up reporting crime, but they usually keep reporting violence and murder. If these things go up, and the others go down, there’s either a white wash or a shortage of police.
Remember the broken windows policy. The tip of the iceberg, i.e. violent crime, is indeed just the tip.
August 25th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
Dim – I don’t know if you are just having a snarky day, but what is your point?
Firstly who the hell wants Fairfax out of business? Not I. Secondly I regard it as a strnegth that rather than get one boring story in the Dom Post, people can read both my view and Jordan’s views on what the stats mean, and decide for themselves.
August 25th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
…and in further support of the blogosphere:
A) a far more extreme difference in reporting of facts does happen in a vibrant newspaper media (such as in the UK where everyone knows what to expect from The Sun/Daily Mail/Guardian/Times)
and B) are you suggesting that NZ newspapers are non-partisan? Does that include the outburst from The Press yesterday?
August 25th, 2005 at 3:44 pm
As a Fairfax journalist, I want you to note that the Stuff story does say several times
“recorded” crime or “reported” .
Thus, we can all make of the figures what we want and to me it reveals some sceptism from the author of the story.
But Jordan can credit Labour and David can raise other concerns.
One point I would like to raise is demographic issues. It is widely believed that crimes tend to be committed by younger people.
If Western nations have fewer young, then obviously there are fewer potential criminals.
As for blogging, I have just written a feature on it for MIS- a business/IT/Management magazine.
As well as looking at its potential business use, there is much on blogging and the election, quoting many of our blogger friends, including David, Jordan, Sir Humphreys and the Greens.
The September issue should be in the shops from the end of next week.
As for some other Stuff headlines, let me that say I would not have used such phrases.
August 25th, 2005 at 3:46 pm
All depends how you apply the categories. For example if a guy has been on the piss on a Saturday night and wakes up at the bottom of his stairwell with a battered face, is it a violent bloody crime or a bloody embarrassing accident?
August 25th, 2005 at 3:59 pm
The bit that bothers me is that a greater proportion of the total is violent.
We may be doing less crime (assuming the stats are accurate and that manipulation “wouldn’t be necessary”) but these stats show that we are favouring more violent stuff.
Whilst I’m happy that absolute numbers may be down, I’m not happy that if I’m the recipient of a crime, its more likely to be violent. Glad I’m not a truck driver.
August 25th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
DPF – I love being able to read viewpoints from yourself and Jordan. I also love being able to take the piss about something as amusing as your funhouse-mirror posts on this topic.
Sam – I’m not suggesting that any NZ newspapers are non-partisan. However, the journalists that work for them are bound by a code of ethics, while bloggers are not.
August 25th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
Also do not forget the following stats as well.
-2002 68,000 calls to Police were abandoned
-2004 180,000 calls to Police were abandoned
-2004 61,000 reported calls were assigned to non-existent “Ghost” units
Cheers Toa
August 25th, 2005 at 4:08 pm
Um, haven’t you just recognised in your last post that “bound by a code of ethics” is rather meaningless in our rags?
August 25th, 2005 at 5:30 pm
Dim:
Interesting that you comment “the journalists that work for [newspapers] are bound by a code of ethics, while bloggers are not.”
First, as long as anyyone concerned with the SST ‘Operation Leaf’ farce, including editor Cate Brett, still has a job please don’t insult me by placing the words “code of ethics” and “Fairfax” within a hundred miles of each other. (Sorry, Sam, no personal reflection intended – but the SST is not considered a credible news source in my house any more.)
Second, I won’t presume to speak for the whole Kiwi blogisphere but I don’t wake up in the morning with a quote of lies to fill? First, readers aren’t fuckwits – people can handle a strong editorial POV, but you run around distorting your sources and outright making things up you’re either subjected to a humiliating pack fisking, or (even worse) lose credibility and readers. That simple.
And as I’ve said elsewhere, I’d be quite happy to put my record of copping to FACTUAL errors up against any MSM hack. Any time. Any where.
And, second, bloggers ARE NOT exempt from any law – such as defamation, contempt of court, insider trading legislation etc. etc. Unlike most media organisations, if I’m sued or charged with a criminal offence arising out of anything I write on NZPundit a large multinational corporation will not be sending a QC or paying for liability insurance.
August 25th, 2005 at 5:41 pm
Craig:
My post was actually in response to Dim’s also (there was a cyber-delay in its sending) – so no need to apologise to me, you were in fact making the same point that I was.
Dim claimed that journalist were bound by the code of ethics, and that (removing dim’s double negative) newspapers were partisan – wtf?!?
August 25th, 2005 at 5:51 pm
Sam:
Aaargh! I meant Darren – I don’t assume all Fairfax employees are ethically-deficient turds because someone upstairs didn’t have the balls to fire Cate Brett.
August 25th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
Craig – I think the SSTs decline as a serious newspaper is a reflection of their abandonment of journalistic ethics. It was only a few years ago that their front page leads set the media issues for the week. Now they’re largely irrelevant.
The big difference between bloggers and journos is that journalists will make an attempt to provide a balancing opinion (not always easy with the National Party, I’m told, since they frequently fail to return calls or don’t have any opinion at all to offer – one of the reasons many political journalists are so upset about the demise of ACT who always have a great sound-byte on hand).
But bloggers – and Jordan and DPF provide great examples in this instance – don’t even attempt to provide balance. They do the opposite, selectively citing very specific statistics to prove their point and ignoring the ones that don’t.
‘So what?’ I hear you say. ‘So long as people know there’s a bias there’s no problem.’
And that’s true up to a point – but if we take a look at the blogging community in the US it’s turned into the exact opposite of a news source. Instead you have sites like littlegreenfootballs, PowerLine and DailyKos, where millions of people go to get their news because they don’t like the version of reality dispensed by the ‘MSN’. The result: literally millions of Americans who have no fucking idea whatsoever about what’s really going on in the world, because the only way they learn about things is through an ideologically filtered echo chamber that merely confirms and amplifies their own opinions.
Bloggers are a great commentary on what’s happening – but not a substitute for real journalism.
August 25th, 2005 at 6:01 pm
Dont forget the 2 111 calls made from Davids company Curia ( in one month).
Remember the call to 111 about the stain on a weedding dress , maybe it was one of davids people.
Im pretty sure the Blumsky incident was put down to a ghost attack. Did he fall or was he pushed ?
Was it an attack on democracy itself or just a 4 hour bender.
August 25th, 2005 at 6:57 pm
The PowerLine blog equalled to the dailykos??? It’s getting dim out there…
August 25th, 2005 at 10:57 pm
Pertinax:
God you’re a sad and bitter person. I’d recommend the people you’ve slandered with monotonous regularity get together and sue, except that DPF (and at least half a dozen other bloggers) would end up being liable for your idiocy.
August 25th, 2005 at 11:34 pm
Yes pertinax/ztev is banned again. He is incapable of posting without sneering abuse at people. Quite frankly he can dwell in the sewers on his own blog.
August 26th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Darren here
Fairfax staff in Australia (strangely enough MIS New Zealand answers to Sydney , not New Zealand) were issued with a code of ethics, etc. But it didn’t make much difference.
Most journos, even the lefties, try to be balanced and fair, or at least they do on the business and IT sections/ publications.
Of course, there will be those who are not fair, balanced, etc.
However, much can depend on the individual viewpoints of the editor or the sub-editor (the person who tweaks the copy to make it fit and/or sound better and chooses the headlines to go with the story).
The editor, of course, helps set the ‘agenda’ of a paper and has the final say on the ‘slant’ of a story, if it has one. I have had issues myself dealing with lefty editors and I have also been an editor myself, but I took the view that bias has no place outside the opinion columns, especially when yours is the only paper in town, as it was in Dargaville 5-6 years ago when I edited the Northland Times.
I fully agree with Craig about the Sunday Star-Times. I have debated this with other journos on the JournoNZ chat room, which David also has access to.
Other journos, such as one from the Dominion-Post and others from the business media, agree that the SST certainly has issues with bias and its editor. One hack described Cate Brett as “a doctrinaire chardonnay socialist” or something similar.
I work in a different building to the Sunday Star-Times, but there are senior Fairfax management here. In an informal Friday drink with one of them, I made it very clear that the SST does not have the credibility it should, it is too biased and from just a business point alone this is damaging. What might appeal to the Grey Lynn coffee set won’t go down well with provincial farmers.
He seemed to agree with me on this and with my belief that the SST is too light and fluffy and should be more serious/upmarket.
I was most appalled when the SST likened Don Brash to Pauline Hanson after Orewa 1. However, now that Labour seems to have dumped race-based funding, I await Clark and Mallard being likened to PH.
And of course, what happened after Orewa 1? National leapt in the polls, showing just how out of touch the SST is with its readers and the general populace.
As for blogs and the MSM? There is room for both of us and we can keep an eye on each other.
August 26th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
I do recall a code of ethics when I started journalism 20 years ago.
The item on that list I’ve seen broken more often than any other – mostly by television – is a responsibility not to intrude on private grief.
Its something which does a damn sight more harm than political bias.