Political calls to crack down on crime are echoing in our media ahead of the upcoming election - not for the first time. Two seasoned journalists showed this was part of a pattern in a report on crime coverage which recommended new approaches. It was commissioned five years ago - but never saw the light of day.

This article somewhat misses the point about why people are so concerned about crime, in my view. We have recently had a number of high profile, very public, violent crimes in the last few months. Dairy robberies, ram raids, shootings in the middle of the CBD, motorists being beaten by dirt bikers.

It’s honestly unhelpful and insensitive to say “statistically speaking” when people are seeing this happen all around them.

The Wellington CBD, for example, is definitely less safe than a few years ago, with people getting aggressive with you for no reason. We also had a violent robbery of a jeweller’s shop quite recently as well.

  • @Xcf456
    12•11 months ago

    But people are not “seeing this happen all around them”, that’s the point of the article you linked.

    People are largely seeing it blasted to their eyeballs via the media that makes it feel like its everywhere, even when crime rates are in a decades long decline.

    Personally I find these cyclical crime panics unhelpful and insensitive because theyre used by cynical politicians to whip up fear, and push ‘tough on crime’ that don’t make us safer.

    • @IlovethebombOP
      0•11 months ago

      As per the story I linked to in response to another commenter, violent crime is actually on the rise.