In response to the murder of 50 Moslems by Brenton Tarrant last week, the Government has banned semi-automatic rifles in New Zealand – a decisive response to prevent any future loss of life with such weapons. Tarrant’s homicidal rampage was brought to an end after two police officers tracked him down fleeing from the Linwood mosque in his car.  According to the police his intention was to continue his killing spree elsewhere.

By some strange coincidence, the two officers had been attending a training session earlier that day on how to stop armed offenders.  They pursued Tarrant, rammed his car off the road and arrested him. The two officers deserve a medal for risking their lives and preventing further bloodshed.

79 deaths in police pursuits since 2008

Generally, police pursuits in New Zealand do not involve such serious crimes or such dangerous offenders. Since January 2008, police have pursued over 30,000 fleeing drivers leading to hundreds of accidents and 79 deaths, nearly half of whom were innocent victims.  The number of pursuits and the number getting killed is growing every year. But the reality is that the vast majority of the 30,000 offenders pursued by police posed almost no risk to the public – until the police started chasing them.

So many Kiwis are dying that police pursuit policy is almost permanently under review. Coincidentally, the same day that Tarrant went on his rampage, the IPCA completed its sixth review publishing a 143 page document: Fleeing Drivers in New Zealand.

The IPCA found that:

• 35% were stopped for a driving offence for which they would not have been arrested
• 15% were merely ‘suspected of offending’;
• 14% were stopped for ‘suspicious behaviour’;
• 9% stopped for an arrestable driving offence;
• 6% were simply routine stops.

The review recommended better training and more oversight for police but no change to the pursuit policy. Police Commissioner, Mike Bush, claimed the review relieved the police of any responsibility arguing…

“the review has shown that our staff generally manage fleeing driver events well…”

Police Minister Stuart Nash said the report showed there was no need for “wholesale changes” to police pursuit policy. Judith Collins and Mike Bush claim that when drivers flee, the police have no choice. They worry that if police don’t pursue, criminals will get away scot free and that more people will take off when apprehended.  Collins argues that the police cannot “give over the roads to criminals?”

But research by the FBI has found that…

“if the police refrain from chasing all offenders or terminate their pursuits, no significant increase in the number of suspects who flee would occur.”

All the police have to do is take down the car’s registration and then pay the driver a visit first thing in the morning when the adrenaline rush is over. Only a quarter of pursuits involve stolen cars, so most of those who flee would still be caught.

Who’s the adult in the room?

These dubious death-denying justifications by those responsible for police policy ignore some fundamental realities – that nearly half of the dead are teenagers and according to US research, 42% are innocent bystanders.  Road safety campaigner, Clive Matthew-Wilson notes that it’s pointless expecting teenagers to behave sensibly when stopped by police.  He says:

“The simple fact is: the part of the brain that allows an adult to make rational decisions doesn’t form properly until the early twenties. That’s why teenagers tend to make impulsive decisions that often end badly. Given that teenagers aren’t going to stop and think, it’s up to the cops to stop and think, instead of letting adrenaline rule their decision-making process.”

Australian road safety campaigner, John Lambert, agrees. He characterises police chases as…

“basically the most hazardous activity you could possibly undertake on roads legally… It’s a total contradiction for police to be engaging in them when they’re supposed to be improving road safety. The fatality rate for pursuits is 3,500 times higher than for normal travel.”

Police pursuits banned in Australia

In 2009, the Queensland state government banned all police pursuits unless there had been a murder or there was an imminent risk to life. Since this policy was introduced, not one person has died in a police pursuit. The Australian state of Victoria has a similar policy. The former head of road policing in Victoria, Doug Fryer, rejected the idea that the state’s cautious pursuit policy meant criminals ‘got away with it.’

“We would far prefer to drag an offender out of bed at six o’clock in the morning than try to drag them out of a car after a crash.”

If this policy had been in place in New Zealand, not one of the 79 people who have died since 2008 would have been pursued – because not one had committed a serious crime which justified the pursuit.  These were unnecessary and totally avoidable deaths.

So who’s responsible?

Writing in The Spinoff last year, Toby Manhire agreed that police chases are inherently dangerous but went on to argue that…

“a rush to assign blame for deaths in police chases can only distort the important discussion around a pursuit policy that should put human life first.”

This not only minimises, it completely ignores, the contribution of the police to this carnage on our roads.  We need to name, ‘blame’ and shame the police because it’s their policy that’s directly responsible for the pursuits that lead to these deaths.

The reality is that until the cause of the problem is correctly ‘named’, no one can be held to account.  If we don’t specify and identify the problem – police pursuit policy – inevitably there will be more phony reviews leading to more platitudinous recommendations about better police training and oversight.

It’s a shame it took a massacre before the Government was persuaded to take decisive action on semi-automatic weapons.  In the meantime, police pursue over 3,000 drivers a year – and 79 people have died. How big will this massacre be, and how long will it go on before the Government takes decisive action on that?

On December 11, 2011 the NZ Herald reported that the families of those killed by Wililam Bell gathered to remember those they lost in the Panmure RSA ten years ago. Bell killed three people at the RSA and seriously injured another – Susan Couch.

In 2001, Ms Couch was working part time doing the club’s accounts. She survived Bell’s attack – but only just. Both her arms were broken; she received severe head injuries and lost about 80 per cent of her blood. Ambulance officers said she came as close to dying as she could get. She spent six months in Middlemore Hospital, followed by years of rehabilitation.

Permanent damage

The legacy of Bell’s assault on Ms Couch is still visible. The head injuries subsequently led to a stroke and permanent brain damage. She has no function in her left arm and can’t even wash the dishes. Her left leg is disabled and she walks with a stick.  She also has paralysed vocal chords which impact on her speech.  She was unable to get ACC for lost earnings or a lump sum payment because, shortly before the attack, she’d had to give up work to look after her young son. All she received from ACC was $60 a week.

Ms Couch brought a claim in the High Court seeking exemplary damages from the Corrections Department for failing to exercise “reasonable care” in Bell’s parole supervision. The Court of Appeal struck out the High Court action, saying her negligence claim could not succeed because the probation service owed her no duty of care. That was overturned by the Supreme Court last year when it gave her the go-ahead to sue the department.

But her quest for justice will need to show the Department had “consciously appreciated the risk” that releasing Bell on parole posed to her safety and that it “proceeded deliberately and outrageously to run that risk”. Ms Couch’s lawyer, Brian Henry, said she had “no illusions” that she had a difficult legal battle ahead but vowed he would show Corrections had deliberately contributed to the outcome.

So far legal proceedings have taken ten years and Ms Couch has still not had her day in Court. The hearing is finally expected to take place sometime this year.

How the Department failed Susan Couch

William Bell was in prison for 3½ years before he attacked Susan Couch and the three others he killed at the RSA. The Corrections Department failed to provide Bell with addiction treatment and psychological support in prison, and failed to monitor his release on parole.  In this respect, the Department has contributed to his on-going drug addiction which subsequently led to his rampage at the RSA.

Section 5 of the Corrections Act of 2004 says “The purpose of the corrections system is to improve public safety and contribute to the maintenance of a just society.”

In regard to Susan Couch, the Department failed miserably on both counts – it didn’t do anything with Bell that would improve public safety and certainly didn’t provide Susan Couch or society with justice.  All she wants is $500,000.  For God’s sake,  give her the money – and an apology.

In September, Simon Power announced he wanted to toughen up the bail laws and make it harder for offenders to be granted bail when appearing in Court. He says his proposals will improve public safety. Similar claims were made about the draconian ‘three strikes’ legislation passed by Parliament last year which imposed harsher sentences on repeat offenders.

New Zealand can afford it – no we can’t!

These ‘tough on crime’ laws achieve two very dubious outcomes. The first is they increase the number of people in prison – which imposes a huge burden on the taxpayer. New Zealand already has the second highest rate of imprisonment in the West – exceeded only by the United States. But building new prisons is an expensive strategy. The last Labour Government built four of them at a cost of over $1 billion. The National Government has already built one new prison at Mt Eden for $216 million and is planning yet another at Wiri at twice that cost – even though the lastest justice sector forecasts show we don’t need another prison.

This is a massive waste of money.  Altogether, police, courts and prisons cost the taxpayer about $5 billion a year – the same as the cost of just one Christchurch earthquake – except that this earthquake of crime happens year, after year, after year. When New Zealand is facing the biggest deficit in its history, tough on crime strategies have created a financial black hole from which New Zealand gets very little in return.

Violent crime is on the rise – no it’s not!

The second outcome of tough on crime laws is that they pander to public perceptions (assumptions) that crime is out of control and putting offenders in prison improves public safety. Let’s examine these assumptions.

There is little doubt that the public believes violent crime is on the rise. A Ministry of Justice study in 2003 found that 83% of New Zealanders held inaccurate and negative views about crime levels in society and ‘wrongly believed’ that crime was increasing. A more recent study in 2009 by Dr Michael Rowe, also from Victoria University, found an overwhelming public belief that crime has got worse despite New Zealand’s murder rate dropping by almost half in the past 20 years. The latest figures for 2010 show a further drop in the crime rate. Police spokesman Kevin Kelly said crime had been dropping in New Zealand since 1997.

In other words, despite all the evidence to the contrary, New Zealanders continue to believe that violent crime is out of control. The media’s sensational reporting of crime and years of pandering to Garth McVicar are largely responsible for these distorted perceptions.

Prisons improve public safety – no they don’t!

This is all very strange – as from an international perspective, New Zealand is perceived as a peaceful country. For the last two years in a row, New Zealand has topped the Global Peace Index issued by the Institute for Economics and Peace – out of 149 countries. The index is based on 23 indicators including corruption, violence, crime rates, military spending and access to primary education. Other countries in the top ten include Iceland, Japan, Austria and all five Scandinavian countries.

In 2010, New Zealand was also ranked third by the United Nations (out of 169 countries) in terms of ‘human development’ – defined as ‘the economic and political freedoms required to live long, healthy and creative lives’ based on information about life expectancy, schooling, income and a number of other factors.

The UN report also assessed global perceptions of crime and safety. Between 2006 and 2009, only 57% of New Zealanders reported feeling ‘safe’. This means that despite reductions in crime, and despite our international standing as a peaceful country with high levels of human development, New Zealanders feel no more secure than the citizens of former communist states like Bulgaria (where only 56% feel safe) and Albania (54%). We’re also on a par with Middle Eastern countries like Iran (55%) and Lebanon (56%) and African countries such as Angola (53%), Nigeria (51%) and Uganda (51%).

There’s something wrong here. In the United States, where the murder rate is four times higher than in New Zealand, 75% of the population report feeling safe. In other words, public perceptions of safety in New Zealand are seriously out of touch with reality. What this means is that the man responsible for passing these ‘tough on crime’ laws – that’s Justice Minister Simon Power – is also out of touch. To put it another way, he’s so driven by political populism, he’s become incapable of objective analysis?

The truth is that Mr Power has a well deserved reputation for knee-jerk responses and ignoring research and evidenced-based reports. The President of the New Zealand Law Society, Jonathan Temm, has been so concerned about what’s happening under Mr Power’s watch that he’s called for a national debate on the criminal justice system

New Zealand a ‘penal curiosity’ – ‘what not to do’!

Given the anti-intellectual manner in which justice and penal policy is currently formulated in this country, perhaps it should be no surprise that the International Centre for Prison Studies at King’s College in London views New Zealand as a ‘penal curiosity’ – and uses our prison policies as an example of what ‘not to do’.

Last week, TV reviewer Gordon Brown wrote an extraordinary opinion piece in the Taranaki Daily News  titled Make the criminals pay. He expressed his disagreement with arguments put forward in my critical expose of the New Zealand justice system: Flying Blind – How the justice system perpetuates crime and the Corrections Department fails to correct.  The thrust of Flying Blind is that 80% of all crime in New Zealand occurs under the influence of alcohol and drugs; and that the best way to reduce reoffending is to provide more intervention in the community rather than locking people up and trying to rehabilitate them in prison at twenty times the cost.

Mr Brown on the other hand claims that “ordinary New Zealanders want to feel safe and the only way for that to happen is to resource the police so they can do the job properly.” He also wants to impose tougher sentences on those who end up in prison.

Community safety

If Mr Brown had bothered to read Flying Blind, he might have picked up on a few facts about community safety. First, crime has been on the decline since the 1990s and the murder rate has halved over this period. The projected need for prison beds has also begun to decline for the first time in 50 years.

Second, for the last two years in a row, New Zealand has topped the global peace index out of 149 countries. The index is based on 23 different indicators including crime rates, violence, corruption, military spending, etc. In 2010, New Zealand was also ranked third by the United Nations in terms of human development.

Third, perceptions of community safety have more to do with the media than they do with the police. A study from 2002 into the role of the media’s coverage of crime reported: “the selective and disproportionate media coverage of crime, particularly violence, when set alongside actual police statistics, raises questions of skewed reporting in New Zealand at a time when crime rates are falling.”

Distorted perceptions of safety

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, New Zealanders continue to believe that violent crime is out of control. Between 2006 and 2009 international surveys found that only 57% of New Zealanders reported feeling ‘safe’. This puts us on a par with Middle Eastern countries like Lebanon (where 56% feel safe), Iran (55%) and former Communist states like Albania (54%). In the United States where the murder rate is four times higher than in New Zealand, 75% of the population report feeling safe.

What this suggests is that we don’t need more police to improve public safety. What we need is more honest journalism and less scaremongering by the likes of Garth McVicar, right wing politicians and commentators like Gordon Brown – who claims to represent the silent majority. Unfortunately, the so-called silent majority has not been silent at all. They’ve been very vocal; this uninformed, lock ‘em up brigade has dominated public debate about justice issues for the last 20 years – leading to a populist competition between National and Labour to be tough on crime.

Where has this competition to be tough on crime got us? The answer is – into a financial black hole. The last Labour Government built four new prisons. National has already built one new prison and is planning another. Justice Sector costs are estimated at around $5 billion a year. This is equivalent to the cost of one decent sized earthquake in Christchurch – but it’s not a one off. Criminal liquefaction shakes the foundations of society year, after year, after year. Mr Brown wants to ‘make the criminals pay’. But this $5 billion cost is imposed on the New Zealand taxpayer – not the criminals.

One has to wonder why people like Garth McVicar and Gordon Brown are so keen to drive the New Zealand justice system into this financial black hole. The answer to that question was provided in Mr Brown’s opinion piece. He wrote: “We (just) don’t care”.  The fact that so many New Zealanders don’t seem to care is why the justice system is Flying Blind.