New Zealand has long been regarded as one of the most desirable countries in which to live. Early in 2013 the Canadian based Fraser Institute rated as the most 'free' country in the world by. In other studies, New Zealand has also been said to be the country with the least corruption and was rated 2nd on the world global peace index. Yet beyond the sparkling reputation and international accolades New Zealand hides somewhat of a dark underbelly when it comes to crime and the number of people we have locked up in our prisons. New Zealand lies a shocking 8th in the OECD when it comes to the number of people per capita behind bars, just behind Mexico and Poland and more than a third greater than its nearest neighbour Australia.
In creating this infographic, I hope to draw some attention to a number of the troubling aspects of the New Zealand prison and justice system. Firstly the amount of crime that goes unreported - two out of every three crimes according to the 2009 New Zealand Crime and Safety Survey of 6000 people, with the numbers for incidents such as domestic abuse and sexual crimes said to be much higher again. When it comes to crimes that are actually reported, the police's success rate at solving crime is not great either - only 47%, though this number varies greatly depending on the type of crime. Homicide for example has a success rate of over 92% at the top end of the scale while at the other end, only 14% of reported burglaries are solved by police.The huge amount of money spent, not just on the cost of keeping people in prison, but on the corrections budget as a whole is shocking too - more than what the country spends on early childhood education - ironically one of the things that could actually help keep our kids from ending up in jail in the first place.
The most shocking statistic when it comes to the prison population itself has to be the massive over-representation of Maori. Maori make up less than 15% of the general population, yet make up over 50% of population of New Zealand's prisons, a number which has risen by 10% since 1981. Pacific people are also over-represented but nowhere near to the same degree.
The real problem with statistics like these however, is what they're not showing - the real stories behind the numbers. If these stories were told I imagine what they would tell us is that a very high percentage of the people in our prisons are from low socio-economic backgrounds, have limited education, have likely been subject to or witness to domestic and other violence or abuse, addiction, unemployment, broken families and often have relatives either in gangs or in jail or both. Lives lived a far cry from the idyllic New Zealand many people perceive.
The New Zealand Ministry of Health recently revealed that 64 per cent of prisoners in New Zealand have suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) at some point in their lives (compared with just 2 per cent of the general population). Other studies have put the rates of TBI's even higher - and for Maori prisoners, some studies have put that rate has as high as 90%. The effects of a traumatic brain injury have been associated with an inability to recognise the consequences of your actions, an inability to resist impulses, and a lack of recognition of what is appropriate behaviour, all things likely to lead them back into trouble with the police and the justice system.
Another aspect that is very hard to quantify is what role European colonialism has had on the place of present day Maori in New Zealand society. The forced moves away from traditional ways of living into a comparatively disconnected - and in many cases poor -urban environment has taken its toll on many families and has lead to intergeneration problems as it has in other native cultures around the world. A comparison of Maori imprisonment rates with other indigenous populations that have gone through the effects of European colonisation - Native American Indians in the USA and Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders in Australia - actually shows that rates of Maori imprisonment are lower than either of them, and in fact far lower than the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders in Australia - where the imprisonment rates are appalling. It should be mentioned that the numbers for Native Americans could well be skewed by the overall high imprisonment rates in the USA (see 'How Does New Zealand Compare' graph).
Finally the question of whether New Zealand's prisons are working. If the goal of our prisons is to rehabilitate prisoners, then it seems we are failing miserably, particularly when it comes to our youngest prisoners. The recidivism rates for prisoners aged under 20 at the time of release are shocking - 88% will have been re-convicted of a crime within the following 5 years and 77% will have been sentenced to more time in prison. The rates do slowly improve as prisoners get older, but even then the numbers are not pretty.
It seems then that by the time you get to prison it may already be too late to turn things around for the vast majority of prisoners. Perhaps then the best chance we have of changing this cycle would be to focus our efforts on improving the lives and the chances of at-risk youth before they begin heading down that road.
This won't be easy and will require a multifaceted approach that brings out into the open what is going on in many families in the poorest parts of our society and makes it okay to talk about and confront these issues. There needs to be government policies that target the reduction of poverty and societal inequalities, the stemming of intergenerational abuses and addictions, more avenues of support for families that are struggling and the improving of access and engagement in education from early-childhood onwards.
These changes and policies will not be simple and will require long term cross party support and an end to the use of crime, tougher sentencing and benefit bashing as political footballs when election campaigns roll around. There is already good work being done both in our prisons and out in the community but these efforts need much greater governmental support if real long term progress is going to be made and we are going to give at-risk youth a vision of a future beyond gangs and a life of crime.
Notes: The statistics contained in this infographic have mainly been taken from the most recent data available on the corrections website - mostly from 2011 and 2012. Other statistics such as the recidivision rate is from a study conducted between 2004-2009. The number of prisoners currently in jail is taken from August 2013.
I would highly recommend the short Al Jazerra documentary Locked Up Warriors which gives a great insight into the lives of current, former and possibly future New Zealand prison inmates.
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