Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Feckless Solutions

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  • Stephen Judd,

    a way of protecting the most vulnerable from unacceptable risk of harm. I guess the question is how?

    It's a very hard question as far as looking out for individuals goes.

    There's the statistical approach: you fit the profile of a victim/offender, and the state will single you out. This can lead to serious injustice in a variety of ways: the profile criteria can be wrong, the data used to profile you can be wrong, you can fit the profile and yet be a righteous person.

    Then there's relying on the judgment of professionals (which itself can be supplemented by profiling). Then we blame those professsionals when they miss a case, and we blame them when they over-react. The public does not forgive human error in medicine, mental health, or social work.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    Cutting the benefit of someone who's likely to abuse and forcing them to get a job isn't going to suddenly turn them into a non-abusive person.

    I know that getting a cool job after a period of long unemployment feels really good, but turning someone from a dole bludger into, say, a cleaner isn't going to suddenly remove the thing that makes them the sort of person who'd harm a child.

    It seems that many of the solutions offered to this problems are based around monitoring. Helen Clark was on Breakfast this morning saying that Nia Glassie had "fallen through absolutely every crack".

    But why is it that children are getting into positions where they need to be monitored by support agencies in the first place? A child who hasn't been abused is better off than a child who has been abused and rescued, so why aren't we aiming for that?

    It's hard to not feel helpless.

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • rodgerd,

    There are no longer any boundaries

    Maybe you need to go back to the last discussion here and take a take a good, long, hard look at child fatalities presented in UN reports on the topic. New Zealand has dropped massively in the last 30 years. Contrary to your "kids today" hysteria, the fact is "the kids today" kill fewer of their children than their parents.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 512 posts Report Reply

  • rodgerd,

    but turning someone from a dole bludger into, say, a cleaner isn't going to suddenly remove the thing that makes them the sort of person who'd harm a child.

    If the "things" that are fuelling abuse are financially stressed, and having no prospects of your life getting better, then, yes, actually, it will.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 512 posts Report Reply

  • Mikaere Curtis,

    William Curtis is my first cousin. His two sons, Wiremu and Michael, are my nephews.

    Right now, as a whanau, we are grappling with the issues raised by the abuse of Nia Glassie. We held a whanau hui last Sunday, and another one yesterday. We're going to find a way to address the causes of abuse within our whanau (suffice to say that it is highly unlikely that Nia Glassie is the only person abused by member(s) of the Curtis whanau).

    It's not going to be easy, and it certainly won't be quick. But we're determined to confront our issues, in our own time, in our own way. I believe a vector for child abuse is cross-generation transmission, which means that it is our responsibility to deal with it now so our mokopuna don't have to.

    Part of "The Solution" (tm) is for families to take responsibility, like we're doing. Since not all whanau are going to have the will or resources to follow this path, we - as a society - need other mechanisms to detect and prevent child abuse.

    And I think it would be useful if we considered the place of violence in our society, and the assumptions that surround it. There are two memes that are salient to me.

    The first one is that violence is an acceptable mechanism of conflict resolution. Just watch any action movie. Violent people are heroes.

    The second, and perhaps most important, is that violence has virtually no consequences. This meme is constantly reinforced by our popular media.

    I suspect that much of the killing and maiming in our society can be traced to people using violence to get what they want, and who never intended to kill or maim.

    Tamaki Makaurau • Since Nov 2006 • 528 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Further, I haven't looked, but if it's anything like other crime stats, then the racial component of one's offending risk - as opposed to other factors like economic status and history and so on - will be small enough not to bother with.

    That's true. But it doesn't change the fact that, for whatever reason, the situation has become worse among Maori in the past three decades, while it has improved among non-Maori. That's a problem for all of us.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    In the end, child abuse will only *reduce* as people get better education, a stable income, decent housing and a positive attitude to life. The only thing politicians can really do is to promote that, not scrabble around for quick fixes that will probably be counterproductive.

    I did some summer research for the police in the mid-1990s about violence. They were seeing increasing levels of violence in one of the regions, and they wanted to get a feeling of what sort of violence it was, why it was occurring, and some suggestions as to how to turn it around. I was tremendously underqualified for the job, but they were paying money, so it worked out OK for me, and I can't imagine that they took my report as seriously in reality.

    Anyway, the police officers that I spoke to and who provided me with direction for my work, were really tied up on alcohol. They wanted to know about licensed premises, alcohol-related crimes, consumption etc etc. One of the things they were looking for was to be able to say 'alcohol causes violence, we need to limit licensed premises, opening hours etc'.

    Which is a winning solution. If there was suddenly no more alcohol in society, there'd be less violence, no doubt.

    I really didn't like it though. It didn't answer the question of why I could go out in the weekend and get drunk and never get anywhere near a fight or hitting anyone, and other people could have a few beers, get in a fight, and go home and beat the Missus up. Community groups involved with domestic violence, who I also spoke to, were quite cynical about the police's attitude to alcohol. Alcohol released the inhibitions keeping the violence in check, but the people still had the violence underneath. To some extent, it was dealing with the symptom of the personality/culture - alcohol-released violence - rather than the underlying problem - the willingness, whether drunk or sober, to use violence against others.

    It was an interesting learning experience, and I keep coming back to it in life. I agree with the above comment that income, employment, education, housing etc, will all help deal with the problem of child abuse. The incidence will reduce.

    However violence is something that doesn't leave a person when they get a job. They might be less likely to use that violence against another person, because they have income, self-esteem, less time on their hands, less opportunities to take drugs etc etc. But you don't change a person by giving them a job - at least not immediately. And jobs, income, housing, can all disappear just as easily as they can appear, and it's difficult to make them permanent for people. It could only be a quick fix, before things sink back again. We (unfortunately I think) don't have that society anymore. Our society and economy is structured to have poor people, un/under-employment etc, it's not going away, it's just shifting around.

    As others have pointed out, the statement also makes the assumption that if we can just make everyone better off and employed and in good housing and kids in school etc, that child abuse won't happen. Middle class, or even rich people are not immune to violence, so making everyone into those clones, isn't going to make the problem go away, even if the newly employed/rich/educated adopt those middle/upper class values. Those values are not perfect by any means.

    So while those things will help, violence, particularly violence against children, particularly by their parents, will only go away when people learn skills of parenting which provide that environment for kids. And people break cycles and make positive choices about how they're going to be different from other generations in raising kids. And society sets in place laws and structures to best support that.

    The solutions are tremendously difficult, moreso when we think that someone will not put a young child in a dryer just because they have a job and a steady income. I can't imagine what sort of person would do that, but their problems are clearly much more than that.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Maybe you need to go back to the last discussion here and take a take a good, long, hard look at child fatalities presented in UN reports on the topic. New Zealand has dropped massively in the last 30 years. Contrary to your "kids today" hysteria, the fact is "the kids today" kill fewer of their children than their parents.

    That's all child deaths by injury. Our infant mortality stats have improved a lot too -- just not as much as the countries we compare ourselves to. But child homicide rates (kids are killed by their parents in the very large majority of cases) haven't shifted significantly. That's bad.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Neil Morrison,

    Apparently there's a gene that accounts for much of the variation.

    To systemic failure and personal responsibility add genetic susceptibility to the mix, just in case things weren't complicated enough.

    I do wonder if p use is playing a role in this.

    Since Nov 2006 • 932 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    The second, and perhaps most important, is that violence has virtually no consequences. This meme is constantly reinforced by our popular media.

    Agreed. And that's really the only way the sort of consistent abuse we're talking about could happen.

    Thanks for coming by Mikaere, and my sincere best wishes for the task ahead of your whanau.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • kmont,

    Mikaere, I would like to echo Russell's sentiments.
    Thank you for commenting.

    wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 485 posts Report Reply

  • FletcherB,

    There is a solution that seems so simple that it would be ridiculed. Keep saying "We don't hit people." or "People are not for hitting." This in any setting: home, school, church, street, Parliament or everywhere. This is such a simple message and if it is said often and is demonstrably true, by modeling that it is true, actually works. It does not need long explanations, nor does need debate or the handing out punishments. It is the way we live! We don't hit people!

    I'm sure, over time, this could indeed help....

    But how do you "sell" it in a country devoted to rugby?

    West Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 893 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    But how do you "sell" it in a country devoted to rugby?

    Um, drawing a meaningful distinction between being on a rugby field with 29 other adults and a referee and treating your children like a football? Sorry if that comes across as snarky, but it's not meant to be.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • hamishm,

    But how do you "sell" it in a country devoted to rugby?

    The rugby players are at least bashing those of roughly equal physical development. It would have to be made clear that it stayed on the field and while still unacceptable was at least contained. I mean let's get it sorted so that everyone understands that violence in the home is unacceptable. Sports clubs could take the lead here.
    The Listener editorial seemed about as confused as anyone else but made the suggestion that more grass roots organisation is needed. Could we not dip into the surplus for this? It's kind of vital.
    The whole area is a nightmare and I will listen to anybodies solutions just in case they might work.

    Since Nov 2006 • 357 posts Report Reply

  • Daniel Barnes,

    Russell:

    None of them seem unduly troubled by the fact that Nia Glassie's mother, Lisa Kuka, was not a beneficiary. She worked long hours in a kiwifruit factory in Te Puke; six days a week, leaving the house at 5am and sometimes not returning until 10pm. For $600 a week.

    Well that's a great point. I didn't pick up on anyone saying this in all the reams of righteous bumpf that poured thru my mailbox on Sunday.

    That said, I am open to the argument that current welfare policy may in fact have some design problems and have some bad unintended consequences. I can understand that, in broad principle, if someone wanted to maximise the financial benefit to themselves of something like the DPB, it would involve having as many children as possible, and neglecting them as much as possible. And indeed, this model would, albeit very abstractly and crudely, predict some of what we're seeing. The thing about looking at incentives too is that it also doesn't have any racial or cultural overtones, so it's not a bad place to start. Plus, tricky it is to redesign a particular policy, it's much easier than trying to redesign culture or society!

    The other point missing from the overall Sunday commentary is that the DPB rates declined 5% last year. The explosion of media interest in the topic seems to create an equally explosive impression.

    Auckland NZ • Since Aug 2007 • 20 posts Report Reply

  • TracyMac,

    Here's another pakeha sticking her hand up for being beaten and abused as a child. Broken nose, cracked ribs, rape, and a residual wariness about big strong rugby-playing men (and no, it's not bloody rugby either), 30 years later. It wasn't booze - my stepfather hardly drank. It's not a "Maori" problem - it is a cultural problem. By that, I mean if a family has a culture of marginal/no employment and economic disenfranchisement, it is hard for non-abusers in an abusive family to get access to resources to get out of it.

    As well as the economic disempowerment - and of course more Maori are more likely to be economically worse-off than Pakeha (but I do get tired of the Pakeha underclass being ignored in these debates) - there is always a family background of brutality, often combined with some kind of mental health issues. Someone might be quite determined to give their children a good life, but if you get involved with the borderline or outright sociopathic nutter (or addict) who has no normal affect, and you've got no resources to get out, and you don't think you're worth better than what you're getting now... what exactly do you do?

    I think wider family groups need to take responsbility - my mother's nicely middle-class familiy looked the other way because "she had made her bed and had to lie in it". So what if it's "dobbing in" your relatives? If you won't help them yourself, find an agency who will. I also think involving Plunket more is an excellent idea. So many poorer parents never see a Plunket nurse - there are too many slipping through the cracks there, just like children slipping through the cracks with school attendance (another area that needs attention).

    Another thing - universal and adequate sex education at school, which talks about all the contraceptive options. The amount of ignorance that still goes on is astonishing. If contraceptive implants and IUDs were made more readily available to those with more chaotic lives, then perhaps there would be fewer children to worry about. Also, let's get rid of so much song-and-dance about sterilisation - I'm 39, and there's no way in hell I can get my "tubes tied", because I'm under menopause age and I haven't had children "yet".

    Canberra, West Island • Since Nov 2006 • 701 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    I can understand that, in broad principle, if someone wanted to maximise the financial benefit to themselves of something like the DPB, it would involve having as many children as possible, and neglecting them as much as possible.

    I have two kids, and I can't think how it would be physically possible to neglect them enough for the DPB to be profit-making. Perhaps if you had them all sleeping in one room, hardly ever fed them, never did anything with them, or spent anything on them, you might make a couple of bucks.

    Anything more than that is a loss leader. We're not talking hundreds of dollars/kid/week here after all.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    Maybe you need to go back to the last discussion here and take a take a good, long, hard look at child fatalities presented in UN reports on the topic. New Zealand has dropped massively in the last 30 years. Contrary to your "kids today" hysteria, the fact is "the kids today" kill fewer of their children than their parents.

    Eh? What 'hysteria'? I believe I acknowledged that

    every generation thinks their teens are more delinquent than they were

    and if this discussion has already been had, then perhaps we should all move along because (according to your UN stats) there's nothing to see here. Oh, but what's that RB?

    child homicide rates (kids are killed by their parents in the very large majority of cases) haven't shifted significantly. That's bad.

    Even if it's only one child murder a year, it's unacceptable. The point I hoped to make (but obviously failed) was that nothing is going to change until we all want it to change. And I still think my statement that

    There are no longer any boundaries

    is valid. People may know 'right from wrong' in theory but they don't seem to know the practical. Maybe we need to embrace the idea that 'it takes a village to raise a child' (without reverting to a Nanny State) a little more strongly.

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    Ever tried to intervene in a public situation where someone vulnerable is being beaten? The common reaction seems to be to be told to eff and mind your own effing business. Usually, IMHE of such things, it's the victim who's the most indignant, even if she (usually a she) has been screaming call the jacks only moments earlier.

    Mikaere's right, even the victims behave as if violence has no consequences. Bogan culture dictates that those you have power over are your property, to do with as you please - "they're my kids and I'll whack them if I want". Such values die hard, and are given a gloating nudge-wink encouragement by the likes of Laws and whatever that guy's called who seems to have some kind of reputation as a public funnyman for no discernable reason other than that he affects red eyeglasses.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • FletcherB,

    In response to Ian McKay's

    There is a solution that seems so simple that it would be ridiculed. Keep saying "We don't hit people." or "People are not for hitting." This in any setting: home, school, church, street, Parliament or everywhere. This is such a simple message and if it is said often and is demonstrably true, by modeling that it is true, actually works. It does not need long explanations, nor does need debate or the handing out punishments. It is the way we live! We don't hit people!

    I said

    But how do you "sell" it in a country devoted to rugby?

    Then HamishM said

    The rugby players are at least bashing those of roughly equal physical development. It would have to be made clear that it stayed on the field and while still unacceptable was at least contained. I mean let's get it sorted so that everyone understands that violence in the home is unacceptable.

    But thats my point..... not that rugby is evil, but that NZ as a society largely finds that in some situations at some times, some people ARE allowed to hit people.

    It makes the whole "not to anybody at any time anywhere" message a little bit more complicated, and its probably not going to wash in the same society that frequently idolizes the participants, if its going to have any integrity
    .

    West Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 893 posts Report Reply

  • Michael Fitzgerald,

    Daniel
    The DPB isn't at fault here, although our welfare system does need help - more people & more money. National for cutting welfare to below subsistence levels did one thing right. Paid for those on the DPB to train - that was bloody marvelous.

    "The thing about looking at incentives too is that it also doesn't have any racial or cultural overtones, so it's not a bad place to start. "

    Wrong - an incentive not to have children says poor people don't deserve to live. It is genocidal in it's construct.
    Due to the devestion of colonisation Maori are still very much in a growth phase of population and will need to be for some time to come.

    But Daniel if you want to be the first Lemming lead the way.

    Since May 2007 • 631 posts Report Reply

  • Brent Jackson,

    I would like to heartily agree with Mikaere :

    The first one is that violence is an acceptable mechanism of conflict resolution. Just watch any action movie. Violent people are heroes.

    The second, and perhaps most important, is that violence has virtually no consequences. This meme is constantly reinforced by our popular media.

    I suspect that much of the killing and maiming in our society can be traced to people using violence to get what they want, and who never intended to kill or maim.

    We must stop condoning violence as entertainment, especially the unrealistic violence that has no consequences that is the staple of so many movies, TV programs, and computer games.

    American sit-coms portray it as acceptable to punch out a guy because he asks your girlfriend out on a date. Such behaviour should result in your appearing before the courts - it never does on American TV.

    However, whenever people suggest reducing violence on TV, et al, there is always a hue and cry along the lines of "I watch X hours of TV/watch heaps of movies/play violent computer games and I am not violent". People seem unwilling to sacrifice any violent entertainment to aid our society.

    Ask yourself this : how many violent TV programs / movies / computer games would you be willing to forgo in order to save 1 child from this sort of abuse ?

    I know that the studies comparing TV watching with criminal violence have mixed results, but studies have definitely shown that people who view violence regularly are less likely to intervene to aid a victim of violence.

    As a society there must be many things that we can try in order to reduce the violence in our society. Lets start trying some of them ...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 620 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    Even if it's only one child murder a year, it's unacceptable. The point I hoped to make (but obviously failed) was that nothing is going to change until we all want it to change.

    It's that genuine motivation to change that seems to be lacking.

    David Cohen was on Breakfast this morning talking about autism, and he said that whenever a family tragedy like this happens, everyone starts wailing and offering opinions and saying things must change, "and then, suddenly, nothing happens."

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • rodgerd,

    At the risk of sounding prissy:

    Newland's actions were more than just a blend of cunning strategy and violent cheating, they were a nod to a time-honoured tradition. Tales of players being levelled at lineouts are part of the fabric of the game.

    A paen to the virtues of a from-behind punch n the weekend.

    Ask yourself this : how many violent TV programs / movies / computer games would you be willing to forgo in order to save 1 child from this sort of abuse ?

    Well, it's an interesting question, if you accept the argument. But, in the same vein, banning cars and alcohol would also save a lot of kids' lives. Will you also give up your beer and your car, even if you drive carefully and never turn violent iafter a few bevvies?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 512 posts Report Reply

  • Brent Jackson,

    Ironically, I leave here for stuff.co.nz and get the latest headline :

    "Fight on Air NZ flight stopped by former All Black"

    Does this mean the violence in rugby can be a good thing ? :-)

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 620 posts Report Reply

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