MEDIA RELEASE

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

Garth McVicar asked to stop Misleading the Public
“Garth McVicar, spokesperson for Sensible Sentencing, needs to stop misleading the public about the current state of crime” says Kim Workman, spokesperson for Rethinking Crime and Punishment. “His claim on TVNZ’s Sunday programme that the crime rate is increasing is arrant nonsense, and he knows it.”

“The crime rate as at June 2011 was already the lowest in 30 years. In the year to March 2013, the recorded crime rate fell a further 11 percent, and the violent crime rate fell seven percent.”

Two weeks ago, he told another ‘porky’, when he claimed on National Radio that “society hasn’t caught up with the fact that the nature of crime, and the seriousness of crime, is being committed by a younger age group. Younger people are committing crime younger and younger” . http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/2567366

“That is also untrue. The youth crime rate fell by 18 percent over the last year, , and as Justspeak recently noted, the latest Statistics New Zealand data show that the youth apprehension rate has dropped 35% since 1994.” http://justspeak.org.nz/youth-crime-at-record-low/

“On the Sunday program, Garth claimed that I was not involved with victims until Sensible Sentencing came along. That’s another lie. Prison Fellowship, under my leadership, ran its first in-prison victim-offender panel in 1998, and our victim-offender conference in prisons began in 2000. Sensible Sentencing was not established until 2002.”

“Sensible Sentencing relies on generating public fear to gain public support. When you live in a nation with a steadily declining crime rate that no longer works. I would urge Garth to make a contribution to the public law and order discussion, based on the facts”.

ENDS

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