Kerre Woodham: Who to believe when it comes to the crime figures?

As we all know there are lies, damn lies and statistics.

Just read the New Zealand Herald series on the claims and counter claims being made by National and Labour around crime and you'll be left none the wiser as to whether crime is indeed out of control in New Zealand and whether Labour is indeed soft on crime.

For example, Labour has claimed youth offending is down 60 percent over the past decade, the data used to make that claim is from the Ministry of Justice, looking at the total number of children and young people charged in court.

While it does indeed show a significant drop over the past decade, it's also a measure of how often police choose to prosecute. So rather than show that youth offending has decreased. It shows how few times police are choosing to prosecute.

There’s a big difference.  

Sunny Kaushal, chair of the Dairy and Business Owners Group says this year already, and we're only at the beginning of August,  a massive of 45,046 offences have been reported to police to by retailers and they've made just over 1000 arrests. So, 45,046 offences reported leading to just over 1,000 arrests at 2.3 percent. He says it's out of control and he's seen that coming for a while.

Watching people march out with this righteous kind of, ‘you can't touch me and entitled attitude’. Watching them March out with a trolley full of goods, with their entitled bloody attitude, ignoring common decency and the ties that bind us, and indeed the rules of the land leaves me feeling powerless.

When they aren't even brought to account for their crimes, that leaves me bloody angry.

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