Law enforcement

I find it ironic that Mr Martyn Bradbury snivels about there being not enough Police on Queen Street.

He said that years ago police would be out in force dealing with anyone causing trouble.

“I used to watch the old school police coming in with the paddy wagon, the pushy-shove type of police. But in the last six months they’ve dissipated overnight.

“There are a lot of foot patrols during the day, but after 8pm you don’t see them like you used to.”

However, police say they are out in force and have dedicated significant resources to covering the worst areas in the CBD.

Is this the same snivelly Martyn Bradbury who constantly posts anti-police propaganda as represented in the image on the linked post?

Martyn “DBD” Bradbury better hope that the cops don’t remember his anti-police tirades and decided that wee Martyn can be left to his own devices when confronted with scum on Queen Street.

Readers will remember that Matt Blomfield laid a complaint with the Police alleging that I was in receipt of stolen property, and that related to a burglary and theft from his office around February 2010.

This morning I received an email request from Constable Marty Guest from North Shore CIU. He asked me to call him.

I did so and had a 30 minute conversation regarding the files I have. It transpired that the February 2010 burglary that Matt Blomfield told the Police was of his office was in fact a burglary of the office of Warren Powell located in the old AGC building in Victoria Street. and that it was Warren Powell who had laid the complaint with the Police, not Matt Blomfield.

Once again Matt Blomfield has lied. Once again he has been found out.

When I started pointing out the details of the items on the burglary report including specific items like the $17,000 Shag painting he soon realised that I knew an awful lot more about the case than he did, including what was actually stolen.

The conversation was pleasant and wide-ranging. But the bottom line was Matt Blomfield had fabricated a complaint and the poor Constable was now in the middle of it all.

Later this afternoon Constable Guest rang me back to tell me that this was really a civil matter and since the files I had were copies and that I didn’t have possession of the originals even though I know who does I was not doing anything illegal. As far as he was concerned and that of his superiors it was a civil matter.

He did warn me that I should not in any way agree to meet Matt Blomfield…I didn’t find this strange at all considering his previous record of violence and intimidation.

We discussed how I could arrange the return of some personal items that are unrelated to the investigation that I am conducting into the nefarious life of Matt Blomfield. I have agreed to courier those items to North Shore police. I have also agreed to provide a copy of some personal data if Matt Blomfield supplies a portable Hard Drive.

The bottom line is the Police do not believe that I have any stolen information and they consider this to be a civil matter.

No doubt the 142 emails that Matt Blomfield has previously sent to and mention North Shore Police that I discussed with Constable Guest may have given them an indication that Matt Blomfield has form when it comes to paying vexatious complaints with authorities.

Matt Blomfield however should not expect that to be the end of his dealings with the Police, as there is a small matter of conversion of a digger, truck & boat (still at large).

Another Guest Post from David Garrett:

Correlation causation and  crime – the effect of active policing and sentence enhancement

When I was in parliament I sometimes  had  coffee with Rick Barker, a fellow member of the Law and Order Select Committee and a damn good bloke. Rick told a  great story illustrating how correlation and causation can be confused – even by those who should know better.

During WW II, no bananas were imported into Britain, they presumably being deemed not to be an essential food, or just not readily available. After the war, banana imports resumed – and it was noted that within nine months or a year,  the birth rate had sharply increased. For a time, banana sales went through the roof, as its “aphrodisiac” qualities became widely known. It was apparently some years – and after a couple of studies found no basis for bananas enhancing fertility – before it was realized that banana imports and rising birth rates were just a coincidence. The birth rate had risen  not because of bananas, but because at the same time  more and more young men were “de-mobbed” and came home to their wives and girlfriends.

When crime plummeted in New York State following the introduction of “broken windows” policing, those on right said smugly that the reduction in crime followed logically from more intensive policing. Those on the left said falling crime rates were just like those banana imports – changes in policing policy had nothing to do with it.

While  it  is now pretty much over in the US, for ten or fifteen years the debate raged, with lefties “feverishly searching for the ‘real’ reason crime rates plummeted”, to quote the late Dennis Dutton. Any  reason would do -  because surely it couldn’t be simple old style policing. Could it?

All sorts of “reasons” were suggested to explain away the precipitate drop in crime, from “demographic bubbles” passing through the population, to the crack epidemic which had been plaguing New York and other states waning . And of course  the now famous “more readily available abortions” theory suggested by economist Steven Levitt. This theory of cause and effect is in Levitt’s ‘Freakonomics’ and  his paper “Understanding why crime fell in the 1990’s: four factors that explain the decline and six that do not.”  in ‘Journal of Economic Perspectives’ Vo. 18, 1: pp. 163-190

Leftist commentators always focus on the “more readily available abortions”  factor Levitt identifies without ever mentioning two things: that the abortion  ‘factor’  is number four on his list of four; and the two factors  to  which Levitt  ascribes most of the reduction are more police per capita, and much greater use of punitive sentencing policies.  While almost every one knows New York is the home of “zero tolerance policing” a.k.a. “broken windows”, it is less well known that New York state also  has “sentence enhancement” laws, of which three strikes is one variant.

While lefties often derisively refer to the US experience, I suggest we can learn a lot from that country – both what works and what doesn’t.  Those who have traveled widely in the US quickly realize that to a considerable extent it is a land of fifty different  nations. The Boston Brahmins have about as much in common with the good old boys of Louisiana and Tennessee as New Zealand’s effete artistic elite have with banana growers in Far North Queensland.

So what does the US experience tell us about how best to reduce crime?  The most obvious lesson is that a combination  of more police on the streets and  sentence enhancement of one sort or another makes the biggest impact.  This is the major lesson from the New York experience;  it is that state which has seen -by a considerable margin –  the greatest reduction in crime of all types since the 1990’s.

Secondly,  sentence enhancement works. Levitt himself, the darling of the left – at least on this  issue –  says so himself. Twenty six states have introduced  “three strikes” laws which vary widely in their ambit and effect. Some states  – such as California – use their  laws far more than others do. With a couple of exceptions, there appears to be a close correlation between the usage of three strikes laws and the level of crime reduction: those states that apply their laws more have seen much greater reductions in crime of all types than those states which do not.

For the left, this is of course an “inconvenient truth” to borrow from Al Gore, but it is a truth nevertheless. It has often been said – including  by commenters here on Whaleoil – that the drop in crime across the US, and in other countries in the western world is “unexplained”.  What they really mean is if you discount the obvious, then no-one can agree on any other explanation.

Those with both common sense and a degree or two find the lessons from the US clear: put more police on the streets and lock serious felons up for longer, and crime will drop. In the last two years we  have introduced a three strikes law, and put more police on the streets of South Auckland which has the highest levels of crime in the country. And as a result,  those crime rates are falling, along with prisoner numbers. God help us if the socialists get their hands on the levers of power in 2014.

ᔥ NZ Herald

The legacy of Judith Collins is showing fruit, and Anne Tolley is continuing in her footsteps. It is amazing what improving morale and good leadership does to a Police force:

Recorded crime has dropped to its lowest level in 15 years, police figures show.

According to police there were 20,289 fewer offences recorded in 2011 than during the previous calendar year, a decrease of 4.8 percent, with 406,056 offences recorded between January 1 and December 31.

After taking into account the 0.8 percent rise in New Zealand’s resident population over the same period, the fall in the crime rate for 2011 is 5.6 percent.

The largest decreases were in Canterbury (-22.2 percent), Southern (-13.1 percent), Northland (-10.5 percent), and Bay of Plenty (-5.6 percent). However Auckland City and Waikato saw increases of 8.3 percent and 1.7 percent respectively.

Overall 47 per cent of recorded crimes were resolved.

Homicide and related offending dropped 14.4 percent from last year, down 14 recorded offences from last year. Last year saw the lowest number of murders in a calendar year since 1995, with 39 murders recorded, compared to 46 in 2010.

Deputy Police Commissioner Mike Bush said the figures show police and the public remain serious about reducing crime, but that New Zealand still has much to do.

ᔥ Xinhuanet

Stop wasting money on crap like this:

The Army will be promoting understanding of non-lethal weapons and technology in the Asia-Pacific region when it hosts a major international seminar later this month.

About 75 participants from 19 countries will attend the 2012 Non-Lethal Weapons Executive Seminar (NOLES) in Wellington on March 28-30, said a statement from the New Zealand Defence Force ( NZDF).

Non-lethal, also known as “less lethal” systems, were weapons and devices designed to incapacitate a target while minimizing fatalities or permanent injury, it said.

NZDF Land Component Commander Brigadier Mark Wheeler said in the statement that NOLES was an annual multilateral seminar sponsored by the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific.

Keynote speakers this year would discuss international human rights law, the laws of armed conflict, and planning considerations for the employment of less lethal weapons.

“It is becoming more commonplace for military forces to be operating in conflict zones where they are required to maintain law and order, control civil disturbances, or respond to rapid changes in levels of violence, where the use of lethal force may not be justified or permissible,” said Wheeler.

“Less lethal weapons provide military commanders with more options. They can be used to disperse large groups of hostile people, stop or disable vehicles, or deny access to important facilities.”

The use of less lethal technologies enabled security forces to counter non-traditional threats, while mitigating the effects on civilians and the environment, said Wheeler.

David Garrett has sent in a guest post to rebut Brian Rudman. Apparently the NZ Herald prefers running opinion pieces from Labour hacks like Bryan Gould – Britain’s answer to Bill Rowling. They refused to look at a rebuttal of Rudman’s crim hugging whine.

In a recent Herald article Brian Rudman writes – utterly predictably – that imprisonment does nothing to reduce crime, and we should not follow what he calls  the “…bray of the ‘lock ’em up’ lobby.” About the only surprise in his piece is the admission that New Zealand doesn’t after all have “the second highest imprisonment rate in the world” as is  claimed ad nauseum, by those on the left  but  is in fact fifth in the OECD.

Leaving aside that the imprisonment rate in a population is meaningless unless one also considers the offending  rate in that same population, Rudman’s conclusion is simply not supported by the evidence from overseas jurisdictions, particularly the United States. Nor is it consistent with an emerging trend here.

It is well known that  crime rates have plummeted in New York State since the introduction of  so called “broken windows” policing in the early 1990’s. Homicides in New York City fell from a high of 1,946 in 1993, to 673 by the turn of century – a  decline of  more than 60%. What is less well known is that as well as “broken windows” policing, New York also introduced “sentence enhancement” laws,  of which New Zealand’s “three strikes” law is a variant.

In California – the home of “three strikes” – the decline in  crime has been second only to New York’s, with violent crime reducing by 43% during the decade after the introduction of “three strikes” in 1994. Although the rate of decline has since leveled off, crime rates in California  remain about half what they were at their peak in 1991.

On the left, there has always been the greatest reluctance to ascribe any reduction in crime rates to more punitive policies. As the late Dennis Dutton once observed, the precipitate decline in homicide and crime generally  in New York prompted a feverish search by left wing academics across the country to find the “real” explanation – any explanation would do – because it couldn’t possibly be the result of more intense policing and longer prison sentences. Could it?

On this subject as on  others, left wing commentators such as Rudman have no hesitation in massaging data, or selectively quoting from scholarly works. The best example is the theory promulgated by economist Steven Levitt –  in ‘Freakonomics’ and elsewhere  – that more readily available abortions from the mid 1970’s onwards led to a drop in crime twenty years later  According to Levitt’s theory, children of the poor –  who are supposedly  more crime prone -were aborted instead of growing up to be the next generation of criminals.

Aside from the huge holes in that thesis itself, what those who quote Levitt  never  say is he identifies six factors which in his view explain the drop in US crime over the last 25 years. The sixth and  least effective, says Levitt, is more readily available abortions. The top two, in order of effectiveness,  are more comprehensive ‘community’ type policing, and more punitive sentencing laws.

When New Zealand’s “three strikes”  was passing through parliament, the Howard League for penal reform toured a Californian prison chaplain through New Zealand to talk up the iniquities of the Californian law – notwithstanding that New Zealand’s version is utterly different, and under it the famous “locked up for life for stealing a   chocolate bar ” simply cannot happen.

Columnists such as Mr Rudman breathlessly reported the view of Mr Kim Workman, once head of prisons  before he lost his job following a disastrous rehabilitation program he designed  called He Ara Hou was abandoned in the mid 1990’s following its spectacular failure. Mr Workman confidently predicted that if “three strikes” was enacted, the prison population would triple in two years, assaults on prison officers and policemen would increase sharply, and if there was any effect on offending at all, it would likely increase.

Almost two years later the  reality  has been very different. Prior to Christmas, Justice Minister Collins announced that the prison muster per head of population  had fallen for the  first time since the 1930’s. Recently it was announced that a new prison at Wiri would be built after all, after serious consideration was given to abandoning it because of falling prisoner numbers.

For those willing to examine the evidence honestly, and without ideological bias, the reasons for this change are clear. In 2010, the police quietly adopted a New Zealand style version of “broken windows” in Manukau, the country’s most crime ridden district. Offenders coming before the courts for serious violent “strike” offences – more than 900 thus far – are now warned that if they continue to so offend they will spend much longer in jail than earlier in their criminal career.

What is happening in New Zealand mirrors what happened in New York twenty years ago, whether Rudman  acknowledges it or not. A combination of more effective policing and more punitive sentencing has led to a decline in crime. If we do not lose our nerve, that decline will continue. The worst thing we could possibly do would be to repeal “three strikes” – as Labour has pledged to do.

Judith Collins talks about an article in The New Republic about crime in New York:

This is worth reading. The New York experience is mirrored in New Zealand over the last 3 years. Policing turned around and the crime rate has dropped to 1982 levels. The prison population, despite our increased penalties for violent, recidivist offenders, has fallen. South Auckland, which was known as “the mean streets” by the media, has turned around. It’s not because of the Lefties, it’s because of the Police and the fact that they stopped having to apologise for doing their jobs. Prevention First in Policing and Policing Excellence are making a lasting difference to many families and communities.

Now that Judith has fixed the Police perhaps she might like to undo the liberal damage in the Courts system.

Looks like we have yet another violent incident involving Vitamin P.

The man shot by police in South Auckland after pepper spray and tasers failed to stop him yesterday is in a stable condition in hospital today.

Willy Smith was taken to Middlemore Hospital with non-life threatening injuries after being shot in both legs following a domestic incident in Clendon Park

Shrugging off pepper spray and a taser…very highly likely Vitamin P involved.

Wouldn’t it be better just to have a law that says that Police should empty their magazine if they have to fire so we make sure bad guys go down and stay down.

Yesterday I looked at the pay differential between Teachers and the lazy, overpaid wharfies. Some pointed out that wharfies have extremely dangerous jobs and hence the larger pay. They clearly haven’t taught year one in a South Auckland primary school let alone Year 10. However since danger is now the bench mark you couldn’t really get a more dangerous job than as a Police Officer.

CareersNZ tells me that Police pay rates are:

Pay varies, but during training police officer recruits earn $32,619 a year (total package $36,149). New graduates from Police College earn $47,600 a year, plus other benefits (total package $53,305). Salaries increase over time and police in higher ranks, such as sergeants, earn more than this.
According to the 2006 Census, police officers earned an average of $55,900 a year and worked an average of 43 hours per week. This includes full and part-time workers.

For that amount of pay they too also work rosters and are on call pretty their entire working lives. For the privilege of $55,900 per annum they get assaulted, stabbed, shot at, and sometimes run over and killed.

Wharfies on the other hand get full medical insurance benefits for their entire family, $91,000 per annum and only have to work 28 hours in every 40 hours rostered. They get to drive cranes and trucks and forklifts and hoists…but no one shoots at them, no one stabs them, no one bites them, no one bashes them for tuning up to sort  a domestic. There really is no comparison is there.

The people we rely on to protect us the most earn about half what a wharfie earns, I don’t think that is acceptable do you?

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The cops are going to crack down on slow drivers:

They’re tough on speeding, drunk and cellphone-using motorists – now police are turning their attention to those below the speed limit.

Officers will aim to keep busy holiday roads moving by keeping an eye on slow drivers, and say those caught holding up traffic could face fines.

National road safety adviser Superintendent Paula Rose said people were welcome to drive slowly but they needed to be courteous by allowing other road-users to pass safely.

“We are acutely aware of how slow drivers can cause frustration and impatience with other drivers, and sometimes people make bad choices to overtake in a bad spot because the person in front has a queue of traffic behind them,” she said.

“When you’ve got car after car behind a driver going 60km, 30km or 20km below the speed limit, all we’re saying is when there’s an safe opportunity to pull over to the side of the road, please, please do so.”

In some cases, slow driving could amount to careless driving, which could lead to fines or licence disqualification, Ms Rose said.

If I was dictator for life I would pass road safety laws that prohibit people with boats, caravans and trailers from travelling in the holiday season, public holidays etc at any times other than between 2am and 6am.