Mr Couch asserts birching support

Press, 10 January 1981, Page 6

Mr Couch asserts birching support

PA Masterton Letters in support of bringing back the birch were running. at about seven to one in. favour, said the Minister of Police (Mr Couch) yesterday. Mail was flooding into his home and support for his proposal was overwhelming.

“From the letters I have received so far I am a lot more in touch with New Zealanders’ thinking than the theorists,” said Mr Couch, “h suggest they come out of their ivory towers, stop trying to rubbish me, and’ go and find out whati their neighbours think. i “Degrees and titles don’ti seem to .impress thugs. Let us see.‘what a bit of their own medicine will do.”

Mr Couch said that the experts had had a field day for 40 years “and all we have got out of it is a society where it is not safe to walk' down the street at night..

“I go along with Mike Minogue’s (the National member of Parliament for Hamilton, West), ideas about prevention but he is talking about .a totally different subject. He is talking about preventing people growing into criminals.

“F am talking about the subject that concerns most New Zealanders today: how to handle those who are al-ready-violent criminals and who have no intention of changing their ways. "The.<who!e thing boils downrto. one question as fat as the'.average family men and Women are concerned: do we want' fancy theories or safe streets?”

‘The Minister’s •;remarks are typical of people who don’t know what the real story is and come up with a!

i! negative knee-jerk reaction: | lock ’em up or beat 'em up,” f he said. A new emphasis and flexj ibility in the education sys- • tern were heeded to . counter ) Nevy Zealand’s . growing > social problems. The prob- ; lem of poorly situated children becoming poorly situated adults and parenting poorly s situated children 'was self- : perpetuating and was compunded today hv poor job i prospects. A first positive move ■ would be recognition that a high proportion of this year’s secondary-school injtake would not have a I chance of achieving School ; Certificate. “We must drop the pretence that evervone is equal in academic ability,” said Mr Minogue. “Schools are geared to this philosophy: it I is a twiested idea of what is iequal. “Most of the people we are talking of are not aca-) demic and will leave school : as soon as they turn 15. Ifj they have not been taught to 1 read and write and do! simple sums by that stage.) what will .the education sys-1 tern have done for them? It! will have done no more than ■ provide a negative sort of cusotdial care.” i Mr Minoqgue raid that his) beliefs were based on ex-1 perience as a barrister and I ; solicitor dealing with young i offenders followed by 10 years as a teacher.It was possible in the school - system to identify children who would subsequently be anti-social or violent or in trouble with the law before they were) much older. They could bej identified' by such things as ; learning disabilities, psychological disabilities, stress, > neglect at home, and similar i

i: i problems. Sometimes they ”idid not understand the basic (elements of rygiene. -i “In New Zealand we tend - to say. these ihildreh are the r responsibility . oftheir par- > ents, not of; the- school,” said - Mr Minogue.- “This- is ; the - judgment of -comfortable, 1 middle-class NeW Zealanders' / who .do not. know what non- - sense;, they .. talk. These ■ people -.have ■- all been > achievers: ■ they do not understand what .is happen- > ing to the other half.” i Mr Minogue said that if ; half the resources directed) . to law enforcement, .prose-, i cution, and penal institutions | I were used in a positive wayj jin schools it owuld be a big' ■ i step towards reducing the: II youth population in Borstals : -land other institutions. i .New Zealand led the civ-' : ilised world in the rate at ; which it imprisoned its young people. It did not dseem to occur to people that • : the way they did things as a ' I- society contributed to the ’ size of the problem. iMTC. >1 The latest Justice Depart'ment report referred to the. alarming extent of illiteracy lin Borstals. At Borstal ef- ■ forts were made to teach : young people. ' “If it is recognised as nec- ( essary at that stage it i should have been recognised land something done about it lat school,” said Mr Minogue. ■; “It is a shocking commentary on New Zealand society attitudes.” I The national director of the Prisoners’ Aid and Rehabilitation Society. Mr Alan Pinder, said that Mr Couch’s -proposal was disturbing. | “Any society that perpetu-. ates as a legal sanction the ’ very behaviour it condemns can hardly claim to be rational or civilised,” he said.