Unemployment’s dark companion

NOT long ago certainly within the memory of a generation New Zealanders used to leave their back doors and cars unlocked, happy in the knowledge that they lived in safe, prosperous and crime-free society. Crimes of violence were rare and they liked to call it “God’s Own Country”.

It is a sad irony that, as New Zealand has belatedly discovered it is a Pacific country, it has become less and less Pacific. Police statistics show that a record 525,622 crimes were committed during 1991 that’s one every minute of the year. Worse, violent crime figures were also well up, including rapes and other sexual attacks which reached their highest level in a decade.

A total of 15 murders in the first two months of 1992 further focuses New Zealanders’ atten tion on the question: “What is happening to our country?”

Regrettably, if inevitably, the ensuing debate quickly began to turn on racial issues, Regret

tably, because most thinking pakeha acknowledge the need for racial fairness in this multi-cultural nation and accept, as this column has pointed out in the past, that Maori and their Pacific Island cousins are disadvantaged and under-priviledged in today’s society.

And inevitably, because the 1989 prison census showed Maori (then 9.3 per cent of the population) accounted for 49 per cent of male inmates and 50 per cent of female. Pacific Island people (then 3.6 per cent of the population) made up eight per cent of men and seven per cent of women behind bars. With an extra 1000 people in prison today, the situation is not likely to be much different and could be even worse.

These are facts, but it was no surprise that Prime Minister Jim Bolger found himself in hot water for pointing them out. It was not perhaps the most diplomatic observation, implying as it did that the soaring crime rate was a Maori problem. This is patently not true. What appears to be a collapse in moral values concerning people and other people’s property, giving rise to increasing personal violence and more robberies and burglaries, has no less a pakeha dimension than a Maori dimension.

But as he explained later: “For many years it has concerned me deeply that acts of violence by Maori and to Maori were subjects of which we were hardly permitted to speak, and that in our silence we turned away from a problem which, left unchecked, would cause great misery.” Speaking out, he hoped, would focus Maori and pakeha attention on the need for joint action to find solutions.

His comments certainly focussed attention on the issue if not the solutions, and reaction came fast and furious.

Anglican Maori Bishop Whakahuihui Vercoe said the govern ment’s economic policies were responsible for creating a class of people who were totally disadvantaged and, seeing no future, were turning to crime. A Maori police superintendent blamed

Wellington

unemployment, now 10 per cent of the workforce and still rising, saying those who felt alienated by longterm joblessness were more likely to act

violently.

Government MP Ross Meurant drew ac cusations of racism when he blamed the upsurge in violent crime on parenting failures by

Polynesians. But criminologist Greg Newbold

agreed with him, saying statistics showed Maori were more likely to be abused as children, and violence was transmitted through the gener ations. “If you add to that the factor of poverty you have a good formula for a high violent crime rate,” he said.

Newbold said Social Welfare figures showed that six out of 10 males in prison for assaulting women were Maori, as were two-thirds of those jailed for assaulting a child.

Despite having described crime as “the dark travelling partner” of unemployment when he

was in opposition, Bolger eschewed the link drawn by Police superintendent Rana Waitai, insisting there could be no general conclusion that unemployment fuelled violent offending. But he seemed to misinterpret the policeman’s comments as justifying the commission of violent crime by the unemployed when he was, in fact, citing unemployment as a factor, not an excuse.

This had been noted by a Ministerial Committee of Inquiry into Violence conducted by former judge Sir Clinton Roper in 1987, which belatedly the government agreed to have another look at in its search for answers. The report had included a chapter on the Maori perspective, pointing out the damage done to traditional tribal and family structures by the way New Zealand was colonised, with the settlers seizing land and assuming power.

Another report noted the dramatic increase in Maori imprisonment in the 1950 s and 1960 s when Maori left their tribal homelands for the cities in huge numbers, an urbanisation process described as the most rapid of any ethnic minority in the world.

It demonstrated the need to look back to long-term trends to understand contemporary Maori imprisonment patterns.

The Roper report, which was the result of 18 months work and thousands of public submissions, made wide-ranging recommen dations, including more consultation with Maori and the need for more pakeha sensitivity to Maori culture.

At the time of writing, the government was talking about extending the maximum prison term for rape from 14 to 20 years and giving the police wider powers. The country was still awaiting evidence of a new drive by Maori and paheka to come together to try to solve the twin problems of all-round increasing violence and rising Polynesian involvement.

And time was running out. As Race Relations Conciliator Chris Laidlaw said; “One thing is clear: If we don’t begin to devise distinctive solutions to the distinctive problem of Maori offending, then it will soon be beyond all hope of rescue.” □

David

Barber