The Poor Reporting of the MSM

Lindsay Mitchell
lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com

Lindsay Mitchell has been researching and commenting on welfare since 2001. Many of her articles have been published in mainstream media and she has appeared on radio, tv and before select committees discussing issues relating to welfare. Lindsay is also an artist who works under commission and exhibits at Wellington, New Zealand, galleries.

A TV1 news item says about the inquiry into abuse-in-care:

“A report from the Inquiry shows one in three young people placed in residential care by the state between 1950 and 1999 went on to serve a prison sentence. The research shows Maori were even more likely to end up in prison, with 42% serving a custodial sentence as an adult. For the general population during the same period less than one in 10 ended up in prison.” (My emphasis)

I got stuck on the last part of that. ‘Less than’ is indeterminate but suggests not much less than. Which seems way too high. From the actual report:

“Although there are caveats and limitations to consider, the principal results are nevertheless clear. The incarceration rate of people who were in State residential care is high. It is much higher than that of a cohort matched in age, sex/gender, and ethnicity.”

So the denominator was not the “general population”. It was a matched cohort which by necessity would have been disproportionately Maori.

But the ‘fact’ will be repeated frequently – Heather du Plessis has just done so. And Wednesday evening One News did the same.  I will wince every time.

Nevertheless, the data is valuable and proves New Zealand is no different from the countries highlighted in the 2018 report I wrote for Family First, Imprisonment and Family Structure, which stated in the Executive Summary:

“The strongest predictor for imprisonment is growing up in state care.”