misleading headline du jour

The Herald sreams "Maori crime rate concerns Government." On closer inspection, we see plus ca meme... Half the prison population is Maori (non-news) as are 45% serving community-based sentences. That last figure represents a drop. Throughout almost all of the 1990s, ('89-98) the rate of Maori sentencing, i.e. the total count of all sentences imposed by the Courts, exceeded that of non-Maori in all of the eight categories of Crime (as defined by the Justice Dept & excluding traffic offences where 'race/ethnicity' isn't recorded) except for Drug Offences. In other words, Maori comprised 50% or more of all offenders sentenced in every year of that decade. Now we're only 45% (at least in the comm-based sentences). Remember also that the Maori population has grown proportionately to the Whole of NZ since the 1990s, so the decrease to the current 45% level is even sweeter. That's pleasing news. Kia ora!

CRIME TRENDS: In the 12 months to June 2005

• 7.1% reduction across all offences
• police resolution of crimes stable at 44.2%
• 40% of prison population are violent offenders *
  
• dishonesty offences make up 60% of all crime **
  
• marginal reduction in family violence***
• vehicle crime nearly 18% of all reported crime ****
  

* Numbers include sexual violence
** Half of these are theft & burglary
*** Estimated levels of incidents not reported, a "key concern."
**** High by overseas standards. Also, theft of/from cars significantly under-reported.

The Eradicator married a Maori Person! Or so says Don Brash while commenting on Wayne Mapp's new PC-eliminator role. For the record, Mrs Denise Henare is a she-person. A barrister, too, so let's have no dumb Maori jokes ;-) it wouldn't be PC, after all... I say more power to Wayne, and hope his attacks on the Human Rights Commission are unrelenting, particularly its emphasis on 'advocacy' [which is gummint-speak for 'doing all you can to assist the Labour Party'].

Hurricane Harriet dissipates
And what a ferocious storm it was! I've never seen such Republican & conservative fury (from some quarters) over President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. I've always been of the mind that the nominee is the prerogative of the POTUS and no one else. That's something I still maintain. I'll leave it at that. I continue to support the President, regardless. Now that she has withdrawn I hope the GOP can prepare for the 2006 mid-term elections - after recovering from the coming storm over the next nominee, that is. Don't put away your raincoats yet, folks!