“As the other reports have said, this one said that society is being failed, victims are being failed, and offenders and communities are being failed because people aren’t rehabilitated. Victims are ignored, their voices aren’t heard, and that has been the status quo for decades.”
Cheng says that fixing these problems entails a complex web of factors that have been decades in the making.
“There’s social deprivation, there’s lack of education, there’s inter-generational trauma and family violence,” says Cheng.
“But packaging all that into a political slogan is not particularly easy. In fact, when I was speaking with Chester when he was still alive a couple of years ago, he said to me: ‘Soon enough, there’s going to be another election, and no one’s going to want to talk about change.’ And here we are, right before an election, and no one is really talking about the kind of change these reports said was needed. We just get back to slogans again, because that is the easiest way to get votes – and that is what drives politicians.”
So, while all the parties are talking a big game on crime, how do the different policies compare?
And who’s tougher on crime: National, Labour, Act or NZ First? What do the Greens and Te Pāti Māori suggest as an alternative solution? What does transformational change in the justice system actually look like? And is anyone going to do anything new when it comes to the rapid rise of white-collar crime?
Listen to the full episode of The Front Page to get a full rundown of what our major political parties are doing about law and order.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. It is presented by Damien Venuto, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in business reporting who joined the Herald in 2017.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
