There's one heck of a lot of stuff flying around at the moment in relation to family violence.
The newly created Taskforce for Action Against Violence in Families has issued its first report which said, family violence was happening in families of all cultures, classes, backgrounds and socioeconomic circumstances, and the predominant pattern was male violence directed at a female partner.
Yet that claim has been rebutted many times. Only recently Professor David Fergusson, who has published many papers from his long-term study of a group of Christchurch children, said the violence was directed in both directions.
And criminologist Greg Newbold wrote in his book, Crime in New Zealand (2000);
"Women assault their husbands at least as often as the reverse, and many studies suggest that women assault spouses more often than men. However, women are injured or killed more often by their spouses than men are."
I suppose people will believe what they want to believe. But given the government are going to spend $14 million on a national awareness campaign I sincerely hope it isn't going to be a load of propaganda.
Finally, Peter Hughes, defending the campaign says, "New Zealand has a high tolerance of violence. It has to change." He likened domestic violence to drink-driving, smoking and not wearing seatbelts which were normal 20 years ago but unacceptable today.
Well here's the bad news. Truckloads of people are still smoking and still drinking and driving.
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4 comments:
You highlight the precise need for Sue Kedgley's anti-violence against children Bill. Sweden has an eqivalent of the proposed legislation. New Zealand currently has double the per capita rate of child homicedes of Sweeden.
We already have the second highest rate of per capita imprisonment in the world. It's time for a different approach.
A point of interest: New Zealand has the second highest level of income inequality in the OECD the US of course comes first. The two countries are rated 2nd and 1st respectively. Interesting isn't it?
Maybe Sweden doesn't have such a large scummy lower class?
If the various state funded agencies were successful and we no longer had any unwanted pregnancies, STD infections, smoking etc. these agencies would no longer have a reason to exist and their employees would be out of a job. So, not being entirely silly, they never quite succeed in their objectives and blame their lack of success on insufficient funding.
The taskforce against family violence will go the same way, lots of noise generated, lots of money spent, lots of people employed, and no success.
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