Crime rate increase inevitable’

Press, 25 January 1988, Page 1

Crime rate increase inevitable’

By

YVONNE MULDER

Crime rates will inevitably rise as the number of unemployed increases, a trade union official predicted yesterday. “People cannot live on the income they are getting,” said the secretary of the Canterbury District Trades Council, Mr Norm Dewes. "I have no doubt at all that the crime rate will go up,” he said.

He was responding to Labour Department figures released yesterday which show Canterbury had the greatest increase in unemployment in December, up 1050 to 10,461. There was no reason to suppose things would improve in the immediate future, said Mr Dewes. “No-one in their worst dreams would have expected a Labour

Government to have policies that produced unemployment,” he said.

Why were people not demonstrating against the high unemployment figures, the way they did during the Muldoon Administration? he asked.

“Aren’t people hurting enough by now?” The unions were extremely concerned at the continuing rise

in unemployment and would give the unemployed groups as much help as possible, said Mr Dewes.

The director of the Employers’ Association, Mr Colin Mclnnes, said the latest unemployment figures reflected a sorry situation for Canterbury.

Business confidence had to be boosted, so employers would be prepared to take on more staff, he said.