Violence, disorder the critical issues—P.M.

Press, 10 March 1987, Page 4

Violence, disorder the critical issues—P.M.

By

OLIVER RIDDELL,

in Wellington

Violence and disorder are the critical issues for New Zealand this year, according to the Prime Minister, Mr Lange. He was commenting on the attitudes in and the recommendations from the Ministerial Committee of Inquiry into Violence released on Friday. The Cabinet had considered the report at its weekly Monday meeting and would have passed into law, by the September election, a package of measures in response.

The Government would persist with its series of measures designed to

overcome problems of violence and disorder, Mr Lange said. There would be “a beefing up” of police resources, as the signs were clear in the report that more resources were needed.

‘‘We have resolved that within one month a package of legislative measures addressing violence and disorder will be introduced into Parliament,” he said. This would include changes to the Arms Act, Crimes Act and Childrens and Young Persons Bill. Urgency would be given to this drafting job. Other Government

measures would flow from an inter-departmen-tal officials’ committee being set up, Mr Lange said.

This committee would include officials from Maori Affairs, Justice, Labour, Education, Social Welfare, Police, Women’s Affairs and Health, and its job would be to make recommendations either on implementing recommendations from the report or further study of them.

He welcomed the broad spectrum of the report of the Ministerial Committee. It had addressed deterrence of violence as well as its causes.

Some people had en-

dorsed the report because of its deterrence aspects, but its recommendations on alleviating causes needed to be considered too.

“There needs to be an increase in police resources, specially at community level,” Mr Lange said.

The police themselves had submitted to the Ministerial Committee that an increase of 1000, or 20 per cent, in the force was needed. There would not be that many. Increasing police numbers was not on its own the answer, and the report showed there were no simplistic answers.

He agreed that it was ironic, and that most people could see the irony, that he supported increased police numbers at a time when the police union was passing votes of no confidence in the Minister of Police, Mrs Hercus, for not increasing police members. “Passing votes of no confidence at police meetings will cause no-one to sleep more soundly at night,” Mr Lange said. The police had awful tasks to perform, at the grubby end of the community, and it was no wonder they had morale problems from time to time. A realistic cost of the

package to “beef up” the police was $3O million and he had no estimate of the extra numbers that would be involved.

Police presence on every corner might have no impact on the crimes being committed in the neighbourhood, Mr Lange said. It was quality of policing rather than quantity that was the issue. What was needed were quality measures that were not an affront to civil liberties.

“The Government has to react when society feels under threat from violence and disorder,” Mr Lange said. Asked if this strategy

were a move to gain votes in this year’s election, or to combat National’s law and order campaign, he said it was in response to what the Ministerial Committee had found. “No other issue has drawn the interest from society as was shown by the people making submissions on this inquiry into violence,” he said. “That makes it an issue, and indeed the Government has been very concerned about violence and disorder all along or it would not have set up the inquiry.” Mr Lange was also asked if there was the space in already overcrowded prisons for all

the new inmates adopting the report’s recommendations would create. A prison in Hawke’s Bay was already being built, he said, and the Department of Justice had begun a substantial prison-building programme. He was also asked how the Cabinet had felt about the recommended, “short sharp shock prison sentence” for young violent offenders. “There is already some provision now for such a sentence, and the courts will be given wider circumstances in which it can be used,” Mr Lange said.