KEY POINTS:
I was burgled once, 22 years ago. I say burgled but actually I went out and left the front door open, and an opportunistic person or persons unknown helped themselves to our wine, ghetto blaster and a leather jacket while I was gone.
That minor brush with crime left me annoyed but not sufficiently scarred to ever feel the need to install security alarms for the house or car. Maybe I'm deluded, but I've never been convinced the risk was high enough to justify the hassle. It helps, of course, that I've never owned much worth stealing.
You could say my perception of crime is naive. Strange as it may seem in these apparently tense days, I feel safe in my neighbourhood and even, dare I say it, in most parts of Auckland. I don't feel like I live under the constant threat of violent crime though I'm aware that many do.
As Ombudsman Mel Smith suggests in his report on the criminal justice system, the public perception of crime doesn't always match the reality. Contrary to media and public comments, he says, "crime is not running amok". But our fear of crime might well be.
The total number of offences reported to the police annually may have remained static for the past decade, but it doesn't feel like it to most people.
In fact, the risk of becoming a victim of crime is borne disproportionately by a minority of New Zealanders - sole parents, the unemployed and other beneficiaries, those living in rental accommodation and those in the most deprived areas of the country. Being young (15 to 24), single or in a de facto relationship and Maori makes one particularly vulnerable.
It's hard, though, to change public perception and it's public perception, fear, misinformation and prejudice, rather than reality and evidence, that drive the debate and policy about crime and punishment in this country.
Are we capable of rational debate on crime and punishment? Mel Smith thinks not, which is why he's calling for a Commission of Inquiry to give us a chance to stop and reflect on why we're on a "punitive treadmill" that continues to pick up speed.
The problem is that our punitive streak is costing us socially and fiscally.
We have the second highest rate of incarceration in the developed world, behind the United States. Our prison muster is growing at a faster rate than our population; we have more people in prison than ever before (just over 8000 last month, double the number in 1990). We're using community sentences less often, and many more people are being remanded in custody rather than bailed.
Our courts are groaning under the load of prosecutions, and our prisons are overcrowded. Not only is it costly - $9.1 billion in 2003 - but we don't feel any safer or happier with the system we've created for ourselves. We demand tougher, longer, harsher treatment of an ever widening number of offenders.
Smith points an accusing finger at the media for over-reporting serious crime, focusing on events rather than issues, and being captured by interest groups. He says much crime reportage bears the "journalistic imperatives of simplification, titillation, entertainment, dramatisation and immediacy".
He blames the media's focus on the few high-profile failures of the parole system for "a risk-averse approach to granting parole". Yet granting parole is an inherently risky business, which involves "an assessment of future human behaviour", and necessarily includes an element of guesswork.
All that "legislative tinkering" with maximum sentences and eligibility for parole, often as a political response to heightened public concern about a particular case, has resulted only in confusion and a lack of clarity.
Smith says more attention needs to be paid to youth justice, the underlying causes of crime and the rate of offending by Maori (who account for 43 per cent of all convictions and 51 per cent of the prison muster).
But crime prevention is neither easy nor glamorous and doesn't capture the public imagination.
As Justice Durie, a former Law Commissioner, told the New Zealand Parole Board Conference earlier this year, harsher penalties mean harsher criminals, and denunciation often leads to defiance not reform.
Durie observed that since 1997, recorded crime had gone down about 33 per cent while the prison muster has gone up by more than 50 per cent.
Given the current public mood, he said, the wise use of judicial compassion in the present climate - once the hallmark of a good judge - would now lead to public outrage.
But there is hope for us yet, Smith writes. We may yet be mature enough to move beyond simplistic slogans and hidebound ideology.
"My investigation leads me to conclude that there is much wider public support for and social acceptance of an approach to offenders based on humanity, rather than retribution, than is apparent from headlines."
The Rethinking Crime and Punishment project, a group formed by the Salvation Army and the Prison Fellowship, to raise public understanding and be a new voice in the law and order debate, is similarly optimistic.
It says there's a pendulum swing against increased imprisonment, but the public doesn't have the information it needs to make rational choices. There's a political will to change to a more rational approach, but it will depend "on a perceived shift in public attitude".
I hope they're right.
* tapu.misa@gmail.com
