Tv3 ran a news story last night about a supposed alcohol problem amongst our troops in the NZDF.
They cited 500 drinking related offences over 5 years. That is just 100 per year out of total of 10,000 troops or just 1%. They have 61 bars, that’s one and half bar incidents a year per bar. What a massive beat-up of a non-problem. Who are the wowsers that fed this crap to to 3News?
It is a massive over reaction and actually poor reporting on the part of 3 News.
When you compare the NZDF with the rest of New Zealand it is actually the rest of New Zealand that has the drinking problem not the NZDF.
In New Zealand a third of crimes in 2007-2008 were carried out by a person affected by alcohol and in serious offences, such as homicides, it was about half of cases.
Each year police here take 21,000 drunk people home or to the cells because they cannot remember where they live.
In fact if you look at Police crime statistics you can see public disorder offences (like disorderly conduct) which are highly likely to involve alcohol for the past year were well over 40,000, for just one year.
500 offences by the NZDF over 5 years seems small beer if you ask me. A total beat-up by 3News, they should actually apologise to the NZDF.
