JUSTICE REPORT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 231, 30 September 1935, Page 16

JUSTICE REPORT.

FACTS AND FIGURES.

CRIME IN NEW ZEALAND.

REVIEW FOR LAST YEAR.

In the five-page list of offences for which his fellow men have appeared in the dock, as shown in the annual report on Justice Statistics of New Zealand for 1!).'!4, the,average citizen is sure to find mention of many acts which ho himself has committed, not knowing that they were unlawful, Mere possession of a. counterfeit coin, for example, is an offence for which two people, one mail and one woman, were committed for trial. Such curios are dangerous! To convict 17 persons for "failing to eradicate disease in an orchard or garden" sounds like punishing them for not doing the impossible. Would not every gardener gladly keep within this law—if lie could? The legislator that framed it must have believed with pathetic faith all that is said in all the advertisements of all the pest eradicators that arc on the market. Many farmers, one might say, could bo charged with "feeding swine on uncooked meat or offal*' at one time or another, but according to the statistics, only two were caught at it. "Unlicensed persons" doing all sorts of things from selling goods by auction to manufacturing tobiicco form a long procession of subscribers to the Treasury, while people who tried, by some means or another, to dodge paying their taxes are

even more lninicrous, including propor-

tionately more women than any other class of offenders, with the exception of

those arrested for almost exclusively female offences.

Wide Range of Charges,

Even the statistician was appalled, however, by the number of offences for

which 0110 may be brought before a magistrate, and does not attempt to name them all. In a list that starts off with murder (seven cases) and ends with "member of municipal body voting on a matter in which he was interested" (two cases), such phrases as "Other breaches of the Apiaries Act" and "Breaches of the Forests Act" (how many people know what is forbidden by the Forests Act?) aro slipped in, practically nullifying the value of the publication as a "Dutiful Citizen's Guide to What He Must Not Do." There was last year a suicide every second day at least—lßs in twelve months—and from the Court returns another 72 people were charged with attempted suicide. A total of 150 of the suicides were men and only 35 women. Ilomicido accounted for 11 men and nine women; but medical examination of the bodies of 39 men and 13 women failed to reveal the cause of their deaths. Do such things at* untraceable poisons really exist? Convictions for Drunkenness. In a total of 3326 prisoners convicted for drunkenness last year Chinese were the only nationality not represented. New Zealanders headed the list with 1833 pakelia offenders and 155 Maori, which number is probably not disproportionate to the total number of the native-born population, seeing that 499 of those convicted of drunkenness came flom England and Wales, 335 from Scotland and 230 from Ireland. But it is certainly not to the crcdit of the Dominion that amongst the New Zealanders 0110 convicted person in about 15 was a woman, while amongst the Jitiglish, Irish and Scots only one in about 38 was a woman.

Of the 3320 people convicted for drunkenness, 512, including 41 women were charged a t the same time with other offences. While total convictions for drunkenness included one woman in about 21, convictions for offences in conjunction with drunkenness included one woman in about every 12.

L xr ~ U ', dl Tootp(l in t! 'c minds of the New Zealand public that Australia supplies a largo proportion of our [criminals is exploded by the statistics in which it is shown that of each 100 prisoners convicted last year, 8.88 were Maoris and 59.59 pakelia New Zealanders while 12.75 came from England and Wales, 6.02 from Scotland, bufonly Ireland 0 '" A " Stralla and o,ll y 3.59 from