Dr Jarrod Gilbert Sociologist
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If the Minister is correct on gangs I will eat a suitcase full of carrots.

4/8/2014

13 Comments

 
Today the Minister of Police and Corrections, Anne Tolley, launched a 'whole government plan on tackling gangs'.

Great, we need one and much of what is being proposed is good. She should be congratulated. What we don't need is to over-inflate the problem. Unfortunately, in an election year (of course), this is what has occurred.

The Minister says there are 4,000 known gang members in New Zealand. She says that so far this year they are responsible* for 34 percent of class A & B drug offences; 36 percent of kidnapping and adduction offences; 25 percent of aggravated robbery/robbery offences; 26 percent of grievous assault offences; and consequently 28 percent of the prison population is gang members. Sounds bad, right? If we believe what we are told, gang members make up just 0.1 percent of the population yet they are responsible for between a quarter and more than a third of these serious crimes. Bloody hell.

Unfortunately, I suspect it's bollocks. More than that I'll bet on it.

I will eat a suitcase full of carrots in front of the fine Sociology Department at the University of Canterbury if these data are correct. I'll ask the Minister to do the same if I'm right.

Let's look at what we can prove, because inconveniently she has used specific offences that don't match with published data. Nevertheless, we are told that 28 percent of the prison population are gang members. If we take the current prison population as 8,500 that means 2,380 of known gang members are currently behind bars. Whoa, that means 1,620 free gang members are creating all of the carnage that the Minister has cited today.

Not only are the numbers wrong, they are widely inaccurate. Crazy inaccurate. If they're not I'll eat carrots.

Gangs are a problem, but to misrepresent the problem is just as bad. Law and government policy should be based on fact, not fiction. Throwing alarming statistics around in the buildup to an election is perhaps not surprising but it is certainly unacceptable. When the public see these frightening statistics of course they are going to accept whatever solution is offered. The unfortunate truth is that the statistics are blowing a problem into something it's not. Not even close. That being the case, the real problem is being hidden.

There is much to like about this policy initiative, and some things that are pretty average, but either way we should at least be presented with a factual picture. Somebody please ask the Minister to prove her numbers. Anybody. Let's just see the workings.

If the situation proves to be clear and accurate and I am wrong, then I will eat those carrots. 

I am not wrong.

*The Minister says these are the numbers of charges that are laid. Even if correct, why not use conviction numbers? Surely proof rather than suspicion of guilt is a better measure, unless the police are throwing charges at gang members without evidence? But I'll still take the carrot challenge even on that silly measure.
13 Comments
Steve Rollo
4/8/2014 02:45:02 pm

I have little doubt that these figures are utter bollocks. When preparing for a case involving a well known Motorcycle Club about 5 years ago I obtained statistics from Police National Headquarters indicating that gang members, prospects and associates (i.e. the broadest possible catchment) accounted for around 10% of drug apprehensions over a two or three year period for all classes, A, B & C. There can only be two logical explanations for how gangs can now be responsible for 34% of class A & B drug offending; either gangs have got a whole lot busier all of a sudden or there's more rigging in those statistics than there has ever been in all of the world's tall ships. Of course the Minister will say it's the former but I'll wager a sack of carrots it's the latter.

Reply
fFrederick
5/8/2014 12:44:36 am

Well. I don't agree and if we do are we going to next look at these in a racial.and religious context. NO. More interesting blaming gangs. No why doesn't she or he put it into what gangs a supposedly doing what. For the robberies to the drugs.

I am a Drug and Alcohol Counselor and I am not in a position to judge. However I am in the front line of the problems that could be caused by the incompetent decisions made from the Government and departments working under their financial control. Let's not just look at gangs. Let's look at other factions of Organized crime that appears to be bought into the country for their financial input into people pockets that then buys property that then stop the lower income New Zealand era buying or renting reasonable cost.

Where do these figures come from. And where are the criminals really. Drugs is the real problem and I am also talking Alcohol as being a major contributor.

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simon
5/8/2014 04:23:45 pm

Comment deleted

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Andrew Geddis link
6/8/2014 12:26:12 am

WTF?

Simon - that is not cool. Not cool at all.

Tim
5/8/2014 04:30:08 am

More likely associates of gangs and there would be thousands more

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Juan Tauri
5/8/2014 04:50:53 am

Your analysis of the gang 'figures' demonstrates that the overall figures are bollocks. In the mid-2000s Mike Roguski did research on youth gangs in South Auckland for MSD; at that time police were making wild claims of massive increases in youth gang membership. Mike's analysis of their figures showed they were massaged; for example any youth with a mate with known 'gang links' when being questioned, etc was added to the figures, so the figures included a very high % of 'associates' (which in my family pretty much means everyone); and the police told us they knew the figures were dodgy. The Ministers claims have much the same credibility.

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Karen Batchelor link
5/8/2014 06:55:58 am

This is just the same kind of manipulation of the public psyche that we see with the demonisation of pit bulls to justify an agenda that actually has nothing to do with public safety or animal welfare.

For example, John Payne - dog catcher Tauranga - claims that pit bulls are just 4% of the dog population but 18% of the biters. Kerre McIvor - NZ Herald columnist - claims that they are just 2.3% of the dog population but 12% of the biters.

According to the American Pit Bull Terrier Association they are more like 11% of the general dog population.

So what are the other 82% or 88% - i.e. the vast majority of biters - that couldn't be accused of being pit bulls?

Same deal. Something smells decidedly dodgy.

Reply
Kim Workman link
5/8/2014 08:52:19 am

AT least the Minster has downsized her estimate from a couple of months ago, when she claimed that a third of all prisoners were gang members. There were currently 8,500 people in prison, at that time, which meant that there were 2,833 gang members in prison. The Police estimated at that time that there were about 3,500 gang members in total which means that about 6/7th’s of all gang members are currently in prison. Today, the Police changed that number to 4000 gang members, and only 28 percent of prisoners are gang members. Come on guys - truth telling never went out of fashion!e

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Karen Batchelor
5/8/2014 09:03:34 am

How clever of the minister and others to teach gang members not to wear their patches and not to declare their allegiance.

No matter. The public will still be very grateful that the witch hunt is on for gang members rather than the reasons people turn to crime and violence.

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Barrel the "gang member"
5/8/2014 10:08:09 am

Haha I can hear the carrot growers clapping their hands with delight!
The fact is, the NZ gumbiment and opposition are experts at tactical scaremongering and the NZ public are like pigs at a trough,eating up all the bullshit that gets fed to them!
Every election year the same old rhetoric gets rolled out, and every year we fall for it, so we can only blame ourselves.
Now Dr Jarrod and Rollo, my dear learned friends, before you start lecturing me on how we CAN change things through being proactive and holding the ministers, police, etc to account, the reality is this same subject has been making headlines since the seventies (maybe even earlier) when the minister of police talked of "taking the bikes off the bikies", and each successive Gumbiment keeps it up, albeit in different guises, but underneath it all, the same.
Nothing will ever change, we "Gang members" know it and you middle NZ drones should have learned it by now.
Like the old saying goes "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me".

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Karen Batchelor
5/8/2014 10:59:32 am

Exactly.

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matt
5/8/2014 01:55:21 pm

There is alot more gang members in the community that are not registered in the system as gang members. And the same case is present in the prisons. Gang members do not go to the local police station to register themselves as official gang members. It is not in their best interest to do so. For one there is predgidous against gang members in the system, and police tend to lay all sorts of charges on KNOWEN gang members that have little to no backbone. Therefore if the statistics that are presented are on charges laid and not convicted, the difference is the weight of pregidous.

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pepperann
6/8/2014 06:53:28 am

Yep, those statistics are a crock! On a personal angle, my husband and I are trying to raise 4 young men to respect where they come from (gang member Dad and whānau), respect the police, the government and be productive members of society (you know, all round 'good people'). It makes my job extremely fricken difficult when this type of propaganda is 'in their face' (my son's words). The constant stuff ups by Police, the regular hypocrisy of our politicians and the daily prejudice that my sons are confronted with is overwhelming sometimes. How about some honesty, FFS!?

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