Crime, Punishment...and Economics!
How People Interpret The Same News To Suit Their Agenda!
It's not exactly a blindingly new insight to point out that people will use a particular item of news or information and twist it to support their own point of view. In politics, it's often referred to as "spin".
Anyway, this week in Australia there has been news about a reduction in crime over recent years. The figures for recorded crime in 2004 in NSW were issued by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research on Monday. They showed that in the 24 months to December last year, recorded crime fell in nine of the 16 major categories. This continues a general fall in crime rates in recent years.
This particular news item has been interpreted in very different ways by two columnists in the "Sydney Morning Herald".
First, Ross Gittins, the left-wing propagandist masquerading as an economics commentator, leads off a recent column "Why it's not prime time for crime" with the comment...
A drop in criminal offences has a lot to do with heroin, and a little to do with heroes.
The general gist of the article is that the fall in the crime rate is largely the result of a decline in availability (and consequent increase in price) of heroin. The police get little of the credit, according to Gittins.
But what about the wider role of policing and the courts - do they get any of the credit? A little.
Damned by faint praise. It's the increase in the cost of heroin that's the main reason. Economics at work, pure supply and demand! Nothing to do with the police, those nasty instruments of right wing oppression!
But wait a minute! Why did the availability of heroin decrease? Why did the price mysteriously increase? Mr Gittins is conspicuously silent on this point. Could it have something to do with...
There have been record seizures of heroin in recent years, including 125 kilograms from the North Korean cargo vessel Pong Su in 2003.
Miranda Devine's column today, "Sad victims of a vital war" focuses on the stepped up efforts by police to clamp down on the drug trade
The $1billion Tough on Drugs policy has freed police to do their jobs, after a disastrous experiment with harm minimisation policies in the late '80s and '90s had resulted in a doubling of daily heroin users and an explosion in property crime, particularly in NSW....
Australia's heroin seizure rate increased from 8.5 kilograms per million population in 1995 to 30.4 kilograms in 2000, federal police say. Other drugs, such as amphetamines, which are soaring in popularity, are also being targeted, with a world record $250 million ecstasy seizure in Melbourne this month.
This disruption of heroin imports and the jailing of important drug dealers, as well as a crackdown on drug crime in Cabramatta, once Australia's heroin capital, led to a heroin drought at the end of 2000 which was regarded as unique in the world.
So, perhaps the reduction in the availability of heroin wasn't some sort of economic "endogenous" event but rather the result of more effective law enforcement.
Ross Gittins presents himself as someone who looks behind the economic news to present something other than the conventional interpretation and the accepted wisdom. That in itself is a good thing. After all, the government and politicians in general will put their own spin on things.
However, Gittins doesn't stick to objective analysis and interpretation (and yes, I know that in political economy, there will always be some subjective elements!). He consistently includes in his articles comments and statements that he presents as "facts" when they are no more than his opinion.
Miranda Devine, on the other hand, is an out-and-out right winger. You may disagree with her but at least you know where you stand.
What's my point with all this? Yet again, another example of how a left wing agenda is pushed through the mainstream media in a disguised fashion.
It's not exactly a blindingly new insight to point out that people will use a particular item of news or information and twist it to support their own point of view. In politics, it's often referred to as "spin".
Anyway, this week in Australia there has been news about a reduction in crime over recent years. The figures for recorded crime in 2004 in NSW were issued by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research on Monday. They showed that in the 24 months to December last year, recorded crime fell in nine of the 16 major categories. This continues a general fall in crime rates in recent years.
This particular news item has been interpreted in very different ways by two columnists in the "Sydney Morning Herald".
First, Ross Gittins, the left-wing propagandist masquerading as an economics commentator, leads off a recent column "Why it's not prime time for crime" with the comment...
A drop in criminal offences has a lot to do with heroin, and a little to do with heroes.
The general gist of the article is that the fall in the crime rate is largely the result of a decline in availability (and consequent increase in price) of heroin. The police get little of the credit, according to Gittins.
But what about the wider role of policing and the courts - do they get any of the credit? A little.
Damned by faint praise. It's the increase in the cost of heroin that's the main reason. Economics at work, pure supply and demand! Nothing to do with the police, those nasty instruments of right wing oppression!
But wait a minute! Why did the availability of heroin decrease? Why did the price mysteriously increase? Mr Gittins is conspicuously silent on this point. Could it have something to do with...
There have been record seizures of heroin in recent years, including 125 kilograms from the North Korean cargo vessel Pong Su in 2003.
Miranda Devine's column today, "Sad victims of a vital war" focuses on the stepped up efforts by police to clamp down on the drug trade
The $1billion Tough on Drugs policy has freed police to do their jobs, after a disastrous experiment with harm minimisation policies in the late '80s and '90s had resulted in a doubling of daily heroin users and an explosion in property crime, particularly in NSW....
Australia's heroin seizure rate increased from 8.5 kilograms per million population in 1995 to 30.4 kilograms in 2000, federal police say. Other drugs, such as amphetamines, which are soaring in popularity, are also being targeted, with a world record $250 million ecstasy seizure in Melbourne this month.
This disruption of heroin imports and the jailing of important drug dealers, as well as a crackdown on drug crime in Cabramatta, once Australia's heroin capital, led to a heroin drought at the end of 2000 which was regarded as unique in the world.
So, perhaps the reduction in the availability of heroin wasn't some sort of economic "endogenous" event but rather the result of more effective law enforcement.
Ross Gittins presents himself as someone who looks behind the economic news to present something other than the conventional interpretation and the accepted wisdom. That in itself is a good thing. After all, the government and politicians in general will put their own spin on things.
However, Gittins doesn't stick to objective analysis and interpretation (and yes, I know that in political economy, there will always be some subjective elements!). He consistently includes in his articles comments and statements that he presents as "facts" when they are no more than his opinion.
Miranda Devine, on the other hand, is an out-and-out right winger. You may disagree with her but at least you know where you stand.
What's my point with all this? Yet again, another example of how a left wing agenda is pushed through the mainstream media in a disguised fashion.
posted by Kevin Francis at
12:18 pm
