‘Kiwis rank top offenders’

Press, 1 March 1989, Page 8

‘Kiwis rank top offenders’

By

JOHN CALLAN

of NZPA in Sydney

New Zealanders and people from the Middle East have the highest offending and imprisonment rates of any nationality in Australia, according to a report by the Institute of Criminology. “Analysis reveals a disproportionate representation noticeable among New Zealand and Middle East migrant groups,” a researcher, Mrs Kayleen Hazelhurst says in a 164-page document called “Immigration, Ethnicity and Crime in Australian Society.” While the average overseas-born prisoner rate was 75.5 per 100,000 population, the rate for people from Oceania and New Zealand was 171 per 100,000. Figures from a national census of prisons between 1982 and 1985 show that New Zealanders made up 2.4 per cent of Australia’s prison population. > Aboriginals, who comprise 1.4 per cent of Australia’s population, account for about 17 per cent of prison inmates. The only immigrant groups with higher incarceration rates than New Zealanders were those born in Lebanon (230 per 100,000) and the Middle East (199 per 100,000). In contrast, imprisonment rate for Australiaborn people was 107 per 100,000, says Mrs Hazelhurst, a former New Zealander. “The picture of New Zealand rates is affected by burgeoning crime among New Zealand-born Maoris and Polynesians who migrate to Australia,” she said.

“Like Australian Aboriginals, New Zealand Maoris in their own country are about 11 times more likely to be involved in assault than the total population.”