‘Less than 10 p.c. of violent offending reported’

Press, 20 August 1986, Page 5

‘Less than 10 p.c. of violent offending reported’

The Ministerial Committee of Inquiry into Violence was told that less than 10 per cent of violent offences were being reported. Dr John Church, a senior lecturer in education and a founder of the Christchurch Battered Women’s Support Group, said that society tended to redefine many violent offences as something else, giving violence tacit approval. This happened particularly in domestic violence, said Dr Church. “As long as this state of affairs continues, the present penalties for violent offending will continue to have no deterrent effect,” he said. ( Speaking on the second day of the committee’s hearings in Christchurch, Dr Church said that the criminal justice system

should be restructured so that each violent offence carried two penalties: a short prison sentence and the addition of a number of "points” to the offender’s record. Too many points, and the offender should be removed permanently from society, he suggested. The causes of violent offending were to be found in deficient social skills, arising from deficient upbringing, said Dr Church. “Parents do not have to be violent in order for the children to be violent. All that is needed is for the parents to allow violent behaviour in their children. Discordant, neglecting, and over-indulgent parents can also fail to teach mature and nonviolent coping, responses to their children.” Violence on television

and alcohol were not causes of violence, but were, rather, triggers of violence, said Dr Church.

“Most people can drink but do not get violent,” he said.

Alcohol and violence were often linked because they were seen together, but the violence actually happened because the offender had not learned to control his violence “10 years ago.” About 30,000 children were at risk of growing up to become the next generation of violent offenders, he said. It must be made as easy as possible for non-violent parents and children to separate from violent parents, and the Guardianship Act should be amended to prevent access by a violent parent to frightened children, said

Dr Church. Mr Sandy Brunt told the committee that New Zealand was in a state of “near national emergency,” and he criticised the Government’s unwillingness to implement electorally unpopular measures to stem violence.

Examples were raising the legal drinking age, and raising the legal driving age, said Mr Brunt. “Much crime is dependent on mobility,” he said.

Mr Brunt’s main submission was a need for increased police staffing. This was not, on its own, the answer to violent offending but would be the first step of a threestage policy, he said. The police had to first contain violence, then consolidate then “take the offensive, when it is ap-

propriate,” said Mr Brunt. There had been no significant increase in police numbers since 1981-82 when an increase of 500 was sought and 100 were authorised, he said. Mr Brunt said that the function of prison, to protect society, was “entirely appropriate” although its other functions — of punishment, rehabilitation, and deterrence — were ineffective.

He did not agree with harsher penalties, except for a sentence of indefinite mandatory imprisonment for certain acts of violence and for harddrug trafficking.

Men were trained and educated in violent behavious, language, and attitudes, according to the submission of Mr Allan Marriott. This violence was

directed at women and children and, to lesser extents, homosexual men, then other men, he said.

“Women are trained to be, and to expect to be, on the receiving end of that violence.”

Mr Marriott, who has been active in organising several men’s awareness groups, presented figures showing that men were responsible for the great majority of violence, both on the streets and in the home.

Among his recommendations were the support of courses, groups, and programmes for violent men as a means of changing their behaviour, and their taking responsibility for their own violence. Mr Marriott also suggested school programmes oh relationship-building, sexuality, and agressive

masculinity. Dr Ross Lane, of Ashburton, told the committee that the Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council had failed to control alcohol consumption because it could not acknowledge that alcohol was a drug.

Dr Lane said that ail laws dealing with alcohol should include the clause, “Alcohol is a hypnotic drug and a mind-altering substance.”

That acknowledgement should also appear in the Misuse of Drugs Act, and the warning should also be printed on bottle labels, he said. Mr Bert Oram told the committee that the Bible pinpointed the causes of violence, which lay in human nature and tended to be overlooked, in favour of social, domestic, and

evironmental “causes.” Mr Oram said that degenerate material was presented in all branches of the entertainment media, and unless children’s minds could .be protected by “good and postive influences, such as Christian teaching, anything is possible.” A prevalence of humanistic philopsophy at school, such as the teaching of evolution as a fact instead of a theory, undermined Christian values, he said. .. ... “Secular education is not responsible for propagating the Gospel but it should not be responsible for suppressing the Gospel, through a bias in favour of another ‘religion’ which has ho comparable record of character building,” Mr Oram said.