Hon Simon Power
Minister of Justice

3 April 2009 Speech Notes

Drivers of Crime ministerial meeting opening address

I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you, and thank you for taking the time to be here today.
I would particularly like to acknowledge the presence of:

My Ministerial colleague, Hon Dr Pita Sharples, who is co-hosting this meeting with me: Tēnā koe Dr Sharples.
* Professor Ritchie Poulton, who kindly agreed to address the meeting this morning.
Chief District Court Judge Russell Johnson, Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft, Judge Carruthers and other members of the judiciary.
* Parliamentary colleagues

As you will be aware, most of the government’s agenda for law and order since the last election has been dominated by measures to improve the immediate safety of the public.

However, focusing on our response to crime after it has been committed only gets us so far.

We also need to get serious about how we stop crime from happening in the first place.

In a public sense, that work starts today with this Ministerial Meeting on the Drivers of Crime.

I was interested to hear someone criticise this meeting in the media this week.

They were asked what they considered to be the drivers of crime, and they responded by referring to bail laws and offending by gangs.

That is a pretty good example of where the law and order debate has been lodged for some time.

Regardless of whether fingers are jabbing at a failure of the justice system, or a readily identifiable offender, these legitimate and understandable reactions only relate to the period after the criminal event has occurred.

But what about the social and individual currents that put a person into that moment where they are just about to commit a crime?

You are here today because you understand those drivers of crime.

Some of you are involved with programmes that directly address those drivers.

Today is about identifying the drivers of crime – addressing those drivers comes later.

It is the first time I can recall that a government has gone “back to basics” in this way on the causes of crime.

In the past, government responses to crime have tended to be fragmented, as ad hoc strategies and taskforces to address specific problems.

I do not underestimate how complex and difficult a job this will be.

Nor how long it might take before it gets results.

But we must start somewhere.

This may frustrate those who are impatient for solutions, as we start from scratch and take it one step at a time.

We are all impatient for solutions.

But we need to act in a way that produces real and enduring change.

The inevitable post mortems will ask what this meeting will really achieve.

Some will write it off as a talkfest of do-gooders.

But is it such a bad outcome for people who care about the justice system to come to some consensus about the causes of crime?

Particularly when there are such divided opinions amongst you about how we deal with offenders after the fact.

With respect, that debate has dominated for too long.

Perhaps it’s because the solutions are quantifiable, involving either more or less punishment.

After all, it’s much harder to count the number of crimes we may have prevented

Yet having less crime is actually the outcome we can all agree on, because it means fewer victims, and less pain.

From a purely economic view, we know that crime cost all of us in New Zealand $12.5 billion in 2005/06.

The public cost is in the order of $2.0 billion a year, including spending on police, courts, and corrections services, health and ACC.

However, most of the costs – around $10 billion – fall on private individuals, firms and communities.

All of this is money that we would all like to spend on different things if we could.

But a dollar figure cannot be put on the human cost of crime.

And we know that the impact of crime is unevenly spread.

The people most likely to fall prey to crime tend to be those who are already the worse-off members of our society.

They are also more likely to become repeat victims.

Sixty per cent of New Zealanders reported no victimisations in 2005, but 6 per cent reported five or more victimisations.

This small minority actually experiences half of all offences.

I realise that some of you may have heard me say this before, but it bears repeating.

If we tolerate crime at its current levels, then we are tolerating continuing inequality in our country.

We need a new approach to reducing offending and victimisation – an approach that addresses the underlying drivers of crime.

This meeting is an important first step in this new approach. I want to thank the Ministry of Justice staff for all their help.

With that in mind, I invite you to enter into the spirit of the day, to share your knowledge and experience, and last, but not least, to listen.

That is why I am here today.

ENDS

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