Income distribution
April 26th, 2012 at 9:02 am by David FarrarThe Press reports:
Children raised in poor families will earn less and achieve at a lower academic standard but will not have higher crime levels, a Christchurch study has found.
The Christchurch Health and Development Study (CHDS), run by Otago University, has been following the lives of more than 1000 people since 1977.
The latest study, published in Social Science and Medicine, has looked at the impact of family poverty on children up to the age of 10 and how this is reflected in adulthood.
“Being brought up in an affluent family is advantageous to your education and career,” he said.
This is not a huge surprise.
Fergusson said the cohort was split into 20 per cent groups, with the bottom group earning an average of $43,000 a year and the top group earning $55,000.
“It’s not a huge difference but it’s definitely there, and we have seen that it definitely makes a difference.”
I am surprised it is not greater. This is saying the bottom quintile earn 80% of the top quintile. Sure that is a gap, but not as large as many would have predicted.
One of the reasons why the gap is less than other studies of income distribution, is these are people all the same age. Age is a large factor in income. That is why I have little time for the notion that an 18 year old with no experience should earn at least 60% of the income of someone with 25 years experience.
“Contrary to popular belief, being brought up in a poor family does not mean increased rates of crime or mental health problems in adulthood,” he said.
So let us stop blaming crime on poverty. There may be a correlation but that is not causative.
April 26th, 2012 at 9:07 am
can we still ‘blame ‘ poverty for poverty..?
..and all the attendant ills..?
(..3rd world diseases..?..anyone..?..)
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:09 am
Define poverty …… anyone?
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:13 am
Debunking a link between crime and poverty is huge.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:15 am
This is a very significant finding.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:20 am
(shaw on poverty..)
“…I have represented a man who has become intellectually and spiritually as well as practically conscious of the irresistible natural truth which we all abhor and repudiate: -
- to wit, that the greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty – and that our first duty–a duty to which every other consideration should be sacrificed–is not to be poor.
“Poor but honest,” “the respectable poor,” and such phrases are as intolerable and as immoral as “drunken but amiable,” “fraudulent but a good after-dinner speaker,” “splendidly criminal,” or the like.
Security, the chief pretence of civilization – cannot exist where the worst of dangers – the danger of poverty -
- hangs over everyone’s head..”
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:22 am
I think Professor David Ferguson should be more careful with correlations vs causations.
I suspect the real truth behind this sentence is that “Being brought up by educated parents with a career, will mean the family is affluent, and the parents having an education and career is advantageous to the childrens’ education and career”.
Affluence is an outcome. Not an input.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:24 am
very interesting post DPF! I think we definitely need to do what we can to help the poor. But I am more of a fan of charity rather than massive government redistribution of income – which is the solution of the left.
I am not so convinced about inequality being the be all and end all. Some people are good at making money, some people are not.
But the really interesting point is that crime is not necessarily linked with poverty? The left take this as a matter of fact – that a person who is poor is much more likely to become a criminal. However many of us have not agreed with that thesis. Indeed my opinion is that criminality is strongly linked to family structure. If a person comes from a home with no father then they are far more likely to become involved in crime. Fatherlessness is an excellent predictor of whether a child or young person is at risk of becoming a criminal in later life.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:32 am
“..Affluence is an outcome. Not an input…”
rubbish..!..have you never met the dumb-rich…?
..those with affluence the only input they have..
..phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:34 am
Poverty is a crime? Who knew?
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:35 am
That’s really interesting. I’ve often argued that crime is a poverty issue. I may have to rethink my stance.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:38 am
how can shoplifting to feed a family not be a crime of poverty..?
..as just one example…
and that whole study is utter horseshit…
..for the simple fact/reason their lowest decile is $43,000 a year..?..(!)..
..they go nowhere near the real poverty many new zealanders are bowed under….
..how can their study be worth more than a pinch of shit..?
..when they go nowhere near those who are suffering from that state-induced illness of poverty..?
..utter..fucken..cobblers..!
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:38 am
Philu,
No, I’ve never met the dumb rich.
With only one or two exceptions all the people I know who would generally be regarded as “rich” (let’s for arguments say people with incomes over $250,000pa) are smart and very hard working. That is why they are affluent. They earned it through working hard at their education, working hard at their jobs, and often by taking some big ballsy risks.
The one or two exceptions are people I know who inherited their wealth – they’re members of the Todd family. But without exception they are smart and well educated and I expect they would have done well for themselves without the family wealth.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:40 am
Philu,
If I gave a million dollars to a poor family in South Auckland how confident are you that that would then mean their children got a good education and went on to have successful careers.
Because if affluence is an important input then that’s all that’s required to make the children a great success right?
Personally I have little confidence that the sudden affluence would deliver that outcome.
I do believe that what would deliver that outcome is parents who stress the value of education, reliability, and hard work.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:46 am
virtual mark…of course it is not the only factor..
..but it is a factor which can stop/impede those other factors..(intelligence/appication etc..)
..phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:47 am
“..No, I’ve never met the dumb rich. ..”
really..?
i have…the examples are legion…
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:49 am
Hear Hear from this leftie voter (FWIW.)
RRM is about to join the ranks of the properly poor for a couple of years, while wife is off work looking after the baby.
Vote:But we won’t sure be committing any crime to help us get by, thanks for asking
April 26th, 2012 at 9:51 am
The link between having too many children and poverty is the strongest of all.
Vote:They’re expensive.
April 26th, 2012 at 9:54 am
The Chch Health and Development Study is a landmark study in so many ways and it has had over 200 studies from its findings published in the world’s most prestigous medical, pschological, mental health and adolecent health journals. It has also executed a few shibboleths of the left including:
* Cannabis is not a gateway drug to use of harder drugs (Fergusson’s team proved it is and in spades)
* There are no mental health effects from abortion (his team showed a 35% increase in various mental health outcomes with women in the study who had had an abortion vs those who handn’t)
And now we have the’ poverty leads to crime’ connection – a darling of the left – being disproved. I always felt this was an ideological versus actual connection when I looked at the large drop in crime in the US during the greatest increase in poverty in the US in three generations – during the Great Depression. The same has happened in this current recession – poverty has gone up and crime has gone down.
On a personal note – my youngest brother is one of the Otago School of Medicine – Chch Clincal School study subjects and enjoys his regulars interviews with the team!
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:56 am
Legion huh. I reckon I know at least a hundred friends, acquaintances & colleagues with incomes over $250,000 pa. None of them are dumb. All of them are smart, hard working and reliable. As far as I know none of them achieved their success because someone dropped a lot of money in their lap.
My own view is that the “dumb rich”, the “idle rich” and all the other shibboleths the Left like to bandy about have little or no factual basis and are driven more by envy and ignorance than by any reality.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:56 am
Ryan
I always known that poverty doesn’t = crime as I’ve known too many poor people who don’t do it.
Virtual mark
I think you’ve got soemthing there.
Affluence, I think it’s a case of when someone actually does some work at school and then spends 10 yrs of their life getting a tertiary/trade education and follows that up with 10 yrs working at it, it is no wonder their kids build a work ethic and do the same.
What’s sad is the idiots who call them rich pricks and want to take their income off of them and give it to dickheads who either don’t work or do but want to get their tax back and still be called taxpayers.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:01 am
VTLM
My own view is that the “dumb rich”, the “idle rich” and all the other shibboleths the Left like to bandy about have little or no factual basis and are driven more by envy and ignorance than by any reality.
I think it’s more a case of emotional painting words to dehumanise and demonise the target.
In a way it is a violence using intimidation and threatening behaviour.
Sure there are the idol rich
but at the end of the day, it is their money they can do what they want with their time.
Vote:Notice the left doesn’t go after the idols just the rich
No they like a good photo opp like everyone.
April 26th, 2012 at 10:01 am
will you be down to 43 grand there…rrm..?
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:04 am
“..I think it’s more a case of emotional painting words to dehumanise and demonise the target…”
like how the rich/elites/media rant on about the ‘feckless/lazy’-poor..?
..that ‘dehumanising/demonising’..?
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:09 am
I hate to sound like the stereotypical welfare-loving, rich-prick-bashing leftie, but you are wrong. Affluence is very much an input.
The political right loves to pretend it’s not the case, but a child in NZ is HUGELY advantaged if his parents can afford to help him out with stuff like
[buying him a first car to get to work / go away to university in]
[helping him out with some cash for a few weeks to help him move to town to find / start a good graduate job]
…the benefits of this helping hand is HUGE when you consider how much harder it would be for a young guy to take these positive steps in life if his parents cannot afford to offer this sort of help.
So it is simply not true to say that affluence isn’t an input.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:17 am
No, we will be on considerably more than that
Nevertheless the whole thing only JUST stacks up – it’s a good thing I studied for 4 years and worked for 10 to get to the position where I am now. Once we stop paying rent at the end of the year it will get slightly easier…
The people I feel sorry for, are young couples who go all out buying their house in Akl/Wgtn/Chch first, and THEN discover that they can’t afford to take time off to have babies for at least ten years because they need both incomes to keep up with the mortgage. They’re the ones who really flog themselves trying to do everything the “right” way…
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:18 am
Poor in this study would be more accurately described as relatively poor, in that the “poor” average wage is $43,000 pa as compared to the “relatively affluent” top quintlie which earns only $12,000 pa more.
You’ll find a much higher incidence and propagation of crime amongst the poorest decile in society as a whole, not the middle class focus group this study appears to have chosen to observe.
Every study has a context, which David Farrar and The Press have failed to take notice of, or emphasise.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:24 am
“..No, we will be on considerably more than that..”
so how can you possibly claim to be speaking from a perspective of ‘poverty’..then..?
“..I hate to sound like the stereotypical welfare-loving, rich-prick-bashing leftie..”
believe me…you don’t..
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:26 am
kia,
To me, the stunning revelation is how close the incomes between top and bottom incomes are.. this says that any income “inequality” is age related with possibly a regional influence eg, fewer Maori in the study.. or higher Sth Island expectations of Maori?
JC
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:27 am
Phi U, why are you fucking poor? Is it your choice or you blame the rich?
You’ve been fortunate enough to grow up here in NZ and the things you had when you were young, I had none of those? We played rugby with other kids in my primary school days using empty coconut shells, like these ones. No one afforded a proper rugby ball in the village. I came to this country determined to make to be better off compared to the environment that I grew up in. Now, I’m better off here, than the environment that I grew up. I didn’t come with a pre-wired entitlement mentality to this country as you yourself have.
Why the fuck do you blame the well off people in this country for your poverty? What have they fucking done to you fucker? Stop thinking that others owe you? Make your life better by doing something, even if it is toilet-cleaning. Start from the bottom, then work your way up. Show your son that wealth comes from hard work and not from handouts, otherwise he will grow up to be another parasite and follow your philosophy of blaming society for being poor (a loser).
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:30 am
I’ve always though of poverty as a lack of choice.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:34 am
RRM,
But the parents having an education and work ethic is what is going to make this child go to university in the first place. And start a new job. etc etc.
The true inheritance the children of successful parents receive is education, work ethic and life skills.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:35 am
Waa waa waa JC – same excuse given to dismiss the study when the other sacred cows of the left were executed. Answer this – if crime and poverty are so linked, why did crime drop as poverty rose during the Great Depression?
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:35 am
This from the source “… a group of 1,265 children born in the Christchurch (New Zealand) urban region during mid 1977…”. This cohort is an unreliable sample from which to make the extraordinary claims being bandied about on this site.
“So let us stop blaming crime on poverty. There may be a correlation but that is not causative.”
Real crime is not a consequence of poverty, the theft of public assets to line the pockets of the ruling class is a crime committed through affluence. The slaughter of over a million in Iraq and Afghanistan is a massive criminal enterprise that has nothing to do with the any kind of impoverished state of it perpetrators. In this sense Farrar is correct, not all crime can be blamed on poverty.
Desperate acts, on the other hand, carried out in an environment of deprived circumstance are the direct consequence of those impoverished circumstance. Not all people living in such circumstances will react violently, dishonestly or deviantly, however, there will be a marked increase in such behaviour among enough of a proportion of that population living in those deprived circumstances that someone could confidently make the claim that economic deprivation is a direct cause of ‘criminal’ behaviour.
It is very simple, ‘criminal’ behaviour is a predictable consequence of the economic deprivation that neo-liberalism causes amongst the most vulnerable groups in society. Neo-liberalism is the class war in action, it is the imposing of economic sanctions by the wealthy elite on a burgeoning underclass. Neo-liberalism is the crime.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:38 am
RRM,
I should also add … my parents never had the money to buy me a first car, pay for my university fees, help me move town, or get me my first graduate job.
But they did encourage me to get an education, and it was clear their expectation was that I would work hard and eventually go to university. Their contribution to my success was in pointing me in the right direction and making sure I knew what their expectations were.
I repeat. Affluence is an outcome. Not an input.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:42 am
Affluence doesn’t guarantee success.
In my opinion , the greatest success is achieved by those originating from a low-middle class socioeconomic group and combined with a great education.
I’ve known children from upper class families who just don’t have the drive to succeed — perhaps this is laziness and knowing they will inherit their retirement fund.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:45 am
“..We played rugby with other kids in my primary school days using empty coconut shells,..”
aarr..!..we dreamed of the luxuries of having ‘empty coconut shells’ with which to play rugby..
..we had to use a rolled up ball.. of barbed-wire…
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:46 am
Yozza
Take time out from cutting and pasting from Das Kapital and answer the question I posed to JC – if crime and poverty are so linked, why did crime drop as poverty rose during the Great Depression?
Also I wonder if you understand the notion of PEER REVIEWED because clearly you don’t so let me give you a little crash course. Pestigous medical journals of the type that the CHD study are regularly published in are overwhelmingly peer reviewed. Academics who peer review (and the journals who publish what they review) ignore, rubbish or won’t publish studies that have an “unreliable sample”.
The only thing “unreliable” about the sample is that the outcomes from this study blow up some of the left’s stereotypes. Maybe the reliable type of study you are seeking are ones like the discredited Michael Mann Hockey stick so beloved by climate alarmists who, along with his fellow alarmists at the University of East Anglia’s CRU, sought to “hide the data” on that pesky medieval warming period.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:48 am
@virtualmark —income of over 250k does not make you rich unless you have some well performing invesments to go with it.
Nearly half goes on tax .
So, you’re on about $140 k a year after tax. Of that, if you have 3 kids, you could easily have expenses of 100k a year. So, you’ve got 40k a year to play with.
Then, if you’d bought a house, maybe it’s lost some value during the recession.
Rich is not what it used to be — 1 million dollars buys a dump in grey lynn.
To be rich , you travel first class, can afford 1st class air travel for you and your family once or twice a year.
You need at least 10 million bucks to be rich these days, preferably 20 million. Thats just my definition of rich, to someone on minimum income $250k a year probably sounds rich but you can’t even afford to fly first class on that money.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:50 am
Amen to that, good Sir.
But a lot of kids don’t get that, and that’s a huge disadvantage for them, no matter what John Key or Paula Benefit may say about pulling yourself up.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:53 am
Re-krazykiwi at 1030 am.
Good question krazy! I emigrated here from UK in 1974, so I reckon that by now i’ve got a good handle on NZ sociological questions of that nature. I should add, perhaps, that I’m now a NZ superannuitant with commensurate income and lifestyle
The answer to your question, of course, is that there ain’t no poverty in NZ.!
Oh, there may be people who are having to make do with a car other than this year’s model, or who only have a modest sized colour TV and are having to make do with a black and white one in the bedroom, and who aren’t able to afford a Lotto ticket every week (only every other week), and who are having to smoke roll-ups instead of tailor mades, etc., etc..
But the real grinding, demoralising, hopelessness of real poverty? No way!!
Do I have to go on?.
I live in a part of Central Auckland that is sometimes frequented by people who are generally referred to as ‘down and outs”, and we consequently see a fair bit of them. Well, let me tell you I have lived in the Middle East, and Far East – (lived there – not just visited on holiday) – and I know real poverty when I see it. And I don’t see it here. These guys are invariably well shod and clothed, as well as being apparently fit and healthy – if feckless and idle. No starving hordes here in Godzone!!
(Mind you, glue sniffing and other substance abuse are present and observable, but they are issues separate from that of economic deprivation, or, as we put it, poverty)
NO! I have to tell you we’re light years away from true poverty in this fine land of ours.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 11:04 am
There actually have been hints before now that some people are starting to understand this and I linked to this two years ago on this blog, but it’s worth repeating. So read Richard Cohen’s piece in the Washington Post, if only to laugh at his puzzled tone: Did liberals get it wrong on crime?:
Considering that tone I very much appreciated the short, sharp evisceration from the blog JustOneMinute:
Cohen goes on to explain that it may be that culture is the root cause of crime and not economics – leading to further laughter at JOM:
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 11:10 am
david asked…
I think that the following may be relevant.
Income and Poverty in a Developing Economy
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Philu, I fall into the salary bracket you mention. I’ve only just reached that point, because when I re-entered the workforce after spending few years as a full time student, I pretty much started at the bottom again. They were hard years.
Vote:But I haven’t so much as stolen an apple.
April 26th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Cactus Kate (432) Says:
April 26th, 2012 at 9:51 am
The link between having too many children and poverty is the strongest of all.
They’re expensive.
Thats absolutely true.
and that’s why queers of all genders should never be in a position of making political decisions. Most have never held the responsibility of children high on their agenda. they spend what they earn on themselves.
And now we are getting a new one in Shearer’s office.
We need a Straight Persons Party. URGENTLY.
INTERESTING WHEN YOU LOOK AT WORLD LEADERS IN POLITICS THERE IS A SERIOUS LACK OF “NORMAL PEOPLE” WHO THRIVE IN NORMAL RELATIONSHIPS. KEY BEING ONE that does. Others like Cameron and the fellow before him appear to be about it. Maybe Abbott in Aussie.
Appears that politics collects the estranged from all manner of relationships with “normal” being on the outside.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 12:37 pm
KIA “… if crime and poverty are so linked, why did crime drop as poverty rose during the Great Depression?”
The decrease in crime during the Great depression was as a direct consequence of large scale socialist organising to mobilise the masses, the result of such large scale organisation lead directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ in the US and similar such programmes in New Zealand. Enough of those rich pricks then knew that if they didn’t offer an olive branch to the masses the ‘deal’ the socialists were going to offer them would be far harsher than any sacrifice they could comprehend. You should watch nascent organisations like the global ‘Occupy’ movements, it is these that will define your future, KIA.
“Also I wonder if you understand the notion of PEER REVIEWED…”, that you actually believe a sample of urban 1977 Christchurch children can be used as an accurate representation of contemporary New Zealand society illustrates clearly how out of touch with reality you really are. It is an unreliable sample for the premise being postulated by Farrar and co. precisely because such a localised cohort is not an accurate representation of the general population. It is utter nonsense the persevere with the extraordinary fantasies being propagated on this site based on the results of this study.
I’m assuming, since peer review is so important, you accept the findings of peer reviewed studies of the slaughter carried out in Iraq that puts the death toll, as a direct consequence of the US invasion, at over a million. I’m not holding my breath as you seem to base your perception of the world on the kind of faith based gibberish spawned by the likes of Fox News.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
I am one who doesn’t believe in the poverty/crime corelation. I don’t think it exists in the West in any meaningful sense. I cannot think of any criminals that I have represented who have committed crime because of poverty.
Indeed, I think it is misleading to say that poverty leads to or is a part of criminal offending, because poverty is no excuse at all for crimes of violence, sexual crimes, or property damage crimes. Really what the lefties mean is that poverty leads to property theft of various sorts.
I have always said that, in my opinion, the most common characteristic among criminals is selfishness and self-absorption. That remains true for the poor criminals and the wealthy ones (and I don’t mean capitalists, I mean the wealthy people who also commit violence, commit sexual offences and who also steal), as well as those in the middle.
Property offences (theft, burglary, robbery etc) are committed generally, in my experience, because it is an easy way to get something that the offender wants, or an easy way for an offender to make money. I have never seen a burglar who took up crime because of need. I have never seen a shoplifter who took food because they were hungry. I am sure that somewhere in the West there are hungry people who have, but in NZ and in my practice, it is exceptional, not general. Property crime is committed either because a person requires more money than they can earn to pay for a drug habit, or else because of simple greed. And the poor are often just as greedy as the wealthy that Yoza and his ilk decry.
More interestingly, we know that crime generally goes down during a depression/recession. Which would contradict the general left wing view of poverty being a driver of crime.
Yoza,
while you continue spouting misleading ‘facts’ like ‘a million deaths in Iraq’, I know that whatever you say can be discounted completely. When you can show an appreciation for truth, then I might consider what you say.
Well, maybe not even then, but at least I won’t think you so much of a moron.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
You’re tuned to Kiwiblog, folks!
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
“…We need a Straight Persons Party. URGENTLY…”
how will you test for qualifiying for membership ..?
..will a lisp/funny-walk automatically disqualify..?
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Because prohibition ended in 1933.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Yozza
Socialist rewriting of history re the Great Depression and crime doesn’t count as real history – your load of bollocks doesn’t even pass the smell test….except at party meetings of the Socialist Unity Party! Has the reduction in crime in the current great Recession come about because of a similar mass education and grassroots campaign by your socialist comrades?
You’ve got your Iraq deaths studies mixed up. The million casualties figure was an extrapolation from a survey done by an English market research and polling company Opinion Research so it was never peer reviewed. In fact the author of the survey used such flawed methodology in both his survey and extraplolation that he was subject to sanction and dismissal from the professional organisation of pollsters he belonged to in the UK. The Lancet study you refer to estimated 600,000 deaths and has been discredited since it counted every remotely associated deaths such as those from poor nutrition, hygene and degraded infrastructure as opposed to conflict related deaths and especially since a consensus has emerged from several surveys including: the Iraq Body Count survey (from civilian and media records) at 150,000; Wikileaks published the actual Iraq war logs from classified military records and put the total at 105,000 with 60,000 being civilian and finally the UN agency WHO (hardly a right wing organization) estimated 150,000 from surveying 9,500 households. Even the consensus amongst more reputable surveys (average 125,000) lump criminal activity and Iraqi on Iraqi sectarian violence in the final count. The numbers of civilians killed by coalition military action would be a smaller subset of the total figure and at a level massively lower than civilian casualties in say WW2 (45 million) or the Korean War (1.5 million).
The methodology of Prof Fergusson and his team has withstood the test of time and is accepted by the world’s top medical and mental health journals. I’ll take that over an overwrought partisan hack who spews hard left talking points.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Chris Scott
Vote:Nice try – the crime rate was dropping long before Prohibition ended.
April 26th, 2012 at 1:41 pm
This study is simply remarkable; in fact, every single thing Christchurch School of Medicine publishes from this interdisiplinary study is just incredibly useful stuff. We should all feel lucky that we have this kind of research being done here in New Zealand – it really is world leading.
Phil U/Yozza – you seem upset more that the results of this study aren’t to your liking, as opposed to challeging these responses on the basis of the data or evidence they have collected and analysed. I assure you that over the last 30 years, the guys at CSOM have become internationally recognised for this work. I’m not sure your credibility is on the same level.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 1:42 pm
The CHDS has produced remarkable results over time, but I think people might be getting a bit ahead of themselves if they feel that it proved there is no link between poverty and crime.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
baron..when they define poverty as 43 grand…and arrive at conclusions on that basis…?
getouttahere..!
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Whether you believe in it or not is immaterial. The correlation is a bald statistical fact.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Scott Chris,
An adherent of the Spirit Level are you?
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 1:47 pm
anyway..
“..Children raised in poor families will earn less and achieve at a lower academic standard ..”
isn’t that the point being made..?
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 1:53 pm
Scott Chris,
perhaps I should have been more clear: I do not believe that poverty is a cause of crime in Western countries. And variations on that theme. More accurately, I do not believe that poverty is a cause of property crime. I do accept that poor people commit crime, possibly on a greater basis than people who are not ‘poor’. But I do not believe that their poverty is the reason they commit those crimes.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
FES says
Ears burning there maggie?
It is interesting that in reading FES’s comments, it seems that clear parallels can be drawn between the criminal fraternity and those in the welfare bludging fraternity. Is it any surprise then, that we see in our society, commonality in membership of those two fraternities?
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 2:21 pm
On the contrary. Homicide for instance showed a steady increase after prohibition was instituted, peaking in 1933 followed by a sharp decline following the repeal of prohibition, as is simply illustrated here.
[Source: The CATO Institute]
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
Put it this way. One thing most criminals have in common is the fact that they are poor.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Scott, are you sure those aren’t smoking statistics? It isn’t clear from the graph exactly what those stats relate to.
Or is that CATO’s “here, use this graph to support whatever you are trying to argue” graph? They’ve done it before you know.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Scott Chris, put it this way – correlation does not equal causation, which is the whole point of this thread, and supported by the evidence of the relevant study. Your earlier comment about belief and facts risks hoisting you on your own petard here.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
Scott, a history of unwise descisions can lead to bad outcomes – income, health, and judicial. the commonality you cite is correlative, and based on the research and at-the-coalface experience of FES lack of wealth is not causitive.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 2:39 pm
Scott, a history of unwise decisions can lead to bad outcomes – income, health, and judicial. the commonality you cite at 2:23 is correlative, and based on the CHDS research and at-the-coalface experience of FES, a lack of wealth does not cause offending.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
I completely and utterly disagree with this statement.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
of course what many are ignoring here..
..is that the biggest criminals are the finance-companies’ arsewipes/douchebags..
..(invariably of rightwing persuasions..)
..how many burglers equals one petrecivic..?
..phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
philu
Given that it is your choice to be poor, why do you hate those who work so hard to be comfortable? Especially when those very people have paid for the upbringing of your child?
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Who can be sure? Possibly the same number of workers it takes to fund one inveterate bludger?
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
… how many armed robber lazy lying bludging pricks equals one stupid magpie …?
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 3:22 pm
Q..how many foul-mouthed-trolls make one key adviser..?
A..just one..
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 3:32 pm
and of course the biggest thieves/rip-off-merchants of recent times was the wholesale looting of sth canterbury finance..
..by the elites/1%..
..that totalled $1.8 billion..(profits ‘guaranteed’ as well..woo-hoo..!..eh..?..in like the greasy pigs they are they went..)
..(they ripped-off/looted more than has been paid out in all treaty settlements to date..)
two points:
1)..i have never heard those who rail against sole-parents here even whisper about that one..
..probably because they were/are those looters..
..and that..in the main..was rightwingers..
..it sure as hell wasn’t the working class..or sole-parents..
2)..you get a shed-load of sole-parent families for $1.8 billion…
..i actually think the study should be focussed on the greedy rightwing rich..
..and how many of them are crims..
..going on that $1.8 billion wedge snaffled from just that one finance company..
..it may be difficult to find an honest one..
..(and i haven’t even gone near class-wealth-theft..like we are currently seeing an epidemic of..
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Phil,
It’s true that you don’t see a lot of condemnation of white collar crimes here, but you won’t see any apologists for them either. However, the reverse is not true on left-leaning blogs/commentators when it comes to blue collar crime. Why is that?
I’m also not convinced there is a moral equivalence between violent/sexual crime and white collar crime.
Vote:If you had a terrible choice to make – that either you, or a member of family had to either have their life savings stolen, or be crippled/psychologically damaged by a violent attack or rape, which would you choose?
I’m betting that no one would choose the latter. So to me, even though the criminally negligent/fraudulent business people of this world are scumbags, those who prey on others using physical/sexual violence are much worse. Yet you will see people come here and sanctimoniously say how it’s not their fault, it’s poverty, it’s capitalism, it’s colonization, etc. what an enormously disrespectful thing to say in the face of the victims of these types of crimes, and how disingenuous it is of the people who say it.
April 26th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Shitty circumstances lead to unwise decisions, though. Being born into a family of financial illiterates as opposed to being born with parents who teach their kids wise money management is itself a disadvantage.
I think there’s a big gap in the education system. I was only taught useful life skills at school by teachers stepping outside of their curriculum – how to write a CV, how to plan an itinerary, etc.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Kia,
“Waa waa waa JC – same excuse given to dismiss the study when the other sacred cows of the left were executed. Answer this – if crime and poverty are so linked, why did crime drop as poverty rose during the Great Depression?”
I don’t know how you got this from my comment, so maybe I had better explain:
If the top and bottom of the cohort have only a $12,000 difference in income then you don’t have the serious inequality gap for families as has been touted. If there is a high inequality among the general population, then I susgest, as does DPF that its age related, ie, younger people and/or older people who don’t have families.
I then asked the question of whether Maori families could have been undersampled because the survey relates to the Sth Island.
I made no comment or connection to poverty and crime because I take it as a given that there isn’t a substantive one.. as Fergusson says, thats determined by the quality of the parenting.
JC
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 3:58 pm
Yeah, if poverty does not lead to crime then why are our prisons full of poor people?
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Maybe they can’t afford good lawyers.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 4:05 pm
and most of those rightwing finance company scumbags aren’t even doing any time..
..’house-arrest’ in their ill-gotten mansions..still living off the interest of what they stole..
..still with their ill-gotten lifestyles..
..it’s a sick fucken joke…
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
The question is asked by someone pretending to not understand the difference between correlation and causation.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
“..Maybe they can’t afford good lawyers…”
one of those ‘true words spoken in jest’ thangs..
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
kk,
If it was causation then, according to Yoza’s logic, there would be no poor people outside of prison. Or if there were, it would simply be because they hadn’t been caught yet.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 4:17 pm
They aren’t.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
F E Smith
Vote:I’d be interested in any statistics showing that, given that I understand about 50% of the prison population is Maori.
April 26th, 2012 at 4:44 pm
The Christchurch longitudinal study is an important resource, but unfortunately its findings relate to those born in Christchurch in 1977. Both caveats are important, more particularly the first. Christchurch isn’t New Zealand.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 4:50 pm
“I’d be interested in any statistics showing that, given that I understand about 50% of the prison population is Maori.”
From memory about half the prisoners have mental health issues, have had substance abuse as an issue, many come from sole parent families and/or dysfunctional families. These are issues that are not specifically related to income but more towards family structure and parenting (as Fergusson notes.
Incidentally the study also shows that across equivalent users of cannabis Maori are three times more likely to be arrested. I’ll let someone else explain why this is so.
JC
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 4:58 pm
large numbers of prisoners are also illiterate..
(in fact the howard league for penal reform is asking for retired teachers and the like to come forward to volunteer to teach illiterate prisoners..
..this is a most commendable program..and the details/how to will be found on their website..)
..phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
Phillip Ure said
Some would say exactly the same about people who CHOOSE not to be in the workplace, but instead to enjoy the largesse of the long-suffering taxpayer, despite being perfectly capable of working and contributing.
And you’re right Phil; it is a sick joke..
..eh..?
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
MM,
Are you saying that all, or most, Maori are poor?
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 5:38 pm
No, but I’m pretty sure that the average Maori receives a lower than average income. I am simply wondering, though, what the basis was for your statement.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 8:09 pm
MM,
I just don’t class lower than average income as being poor. I also have met and talked with a lot of people who are either in prison, going to prison, or have been in prison. I also know that most of my clients have either had a job (although often low paid) or received a benefit. Whilst apparently not having much spare cash (despite most of them smoking and many of them drinking to excess regularly), none of them have been hungry and very few have been truly homeless (although I did represent a bloke who lived with his partner in his car; he was genuinely homeless, but was a lovely man who did his best to be dignified notwithstanding his circumstances. I forget precisely what he was charged with- an older minor assault, I think. The police couldn’t find him because if his form of accommodation).
Even a poor person doesn’t need to burgle a house to steal an Xbox, or a TV, or jewellery. Our clients generally don’t steal food (had one guy who stole a ham once. Stuck it down his trousers but was seen doing it! He paid for a trolley load of groceries, so there was no need to nick the ham), although I have had clients who have stolen bottles of booze. Other defence lawyers may have had clients steal because of hunger, but I haven’t, nor have I seen it. Indeed often the truly poor (and i have known a few personally) have very high standards for themselves.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 8:15 pm
I’d be surprised if the average income (before imprisonment) of a prisoner was not substantially below the overall average income.
Vote:I’m not suggesting that people steal because they are poor – as others have pointed out, correlation is not causation. I’d suggest though that people lower on the socio-economic scale also produce more that their fair share of criminals – that’s all.
I’d need to look at the actual results from the CHDS before agreeing that no difference in crime rates between cohorts that are arguably quite close in income received has any relevance to the poverty/crime question.
April 26th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
The whole problem with this thread is that it is all about a straw man argument. I’ve never heard or read a serious allegation by a credible source that poverty is a direct cause of crime.
In fact, there are many counter-examples that disprove a direct link – for example, Gaza. Police in Gaza aren’t even armed and at last count I saw they had 1300 prisoners in their one prison. Not bad for a population of 1.6 million or so with supposedly extremely restrictive society
Rather, I have seen argued, in formal studies, that poverty appears to a factor in crime rates, certainly in western societies. But I defy anyone here to come up with a definitive explanation of the causes of crime. It is a very complex area.
That doesn’t stop people, of course, from inventing arguments so they can demolish it with their own brilliance.
As regards FES, I find it interesting that He can make such comments as he doesn’t “believe” in any poverty/crime link, or “I just don’t class…(insert your own statement of anything for which you only have your personal anecdotes as evidence).”
Definitely a poverty of supporting evidence there!
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 9:11 pm
Well I never thought… Yes, Luc I agree!!
Welcome to the true brotherhood of man…
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:57 pm
Luc,
I don’t pay attention to much that you say at the best of times, do I don’t intend to debate you now. I just want to point out that I have made it very clear that my opinion comes from my own experience as a criminal defence lawyer. If you think that is a poverty of evidence, well, I really don’t care what you think so it really doesn’t matter.
And considering that Gaza imposes the death penalty on Arabs who sell to Jews, I am not surprised they only have 1300 in prison. Of course, as a territory that celebrates mass murderers, I am not surprised at much they do these days. Indeed, the Gazan authorities themselves indulged in quite a bit of murder when the took the place over a few years ago, so who are they to throw stones? Oh, hold on, they do! I must say, though, that I am always amazed how you mange to get your pet causes in to the discussion. Anyway, I have seen
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 11:42 pm
The fact is that individuals commit crimes….for their own reasons whatever they may be. I believe that the welfare state inventivise’s crime by under mining moral and social stigmas against committing certain acts. A reading of Theodore Dalrymple’s excellent “Life at the Bottom” makes this crystal clear.
Vote:April 27th, 2012 at 4:55 am
Oh dear – in Luc Hansen we have a version of Godwins Law (ie commentators on the left eventually invoking a Hitler/Nazi motivation or analogy to the right when they cant win an argument) in that he finds a way to skewer any thread to a discussion of the Palestinians. Let us dub this tendency of Luc from henceforth as Hansen’s Law in honour of he who most frequently invokes it!
Vote: