Press Council complaint upheld

The Press Council has upheld a complaint about an Insight feature article published in The Dominion Post in November last year.

It found the article, which presented a range of options for cutting prison numbers, had used statistics carelessly.

Its weak analysis and an error in failing to use a graph relied upon by the feature writer left the paper open to criticism.

Jim Rose, who complained to the Press Council, was justified in challenging it on the grounds of accuracy.

The article, headlined ‘‘Unlock the door and throw away the key’’, was written in response to a claim by Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis that his Government was keen to cut the prison population by 30 per cent over the next 15 years. It discussed how this might be achieved.

The writer drew on a Corrections Department graph showing the most serious offence type for which people were imprisoned and used this to suggest that 42 per cent – who were in prison for dishonesty, drugs, antisocial behaviour, traffic and other administrative or property abuses – were in jail for ‘‘relatively minor offences’’.

This was contentious ground and the writer had not justified how he minimised what many would classify as serious offences. It certainly begged the question as to why judges, who have considerable powers of discretion and a range of sentencing options, were compelled to send these people to prison.

The 42 per cent figure was clearly at odds with figures in a graph sourced from the Sensible Sentencing Trust which was mistakenly printed with the article.

This showed 21 per cent were in prison for serious and violent assaults, 20 for sexual offences, 14 per cent for home invasions and burglary, 9 per cent for aggravated robbery and robbery and 7 per cent for homicide. Another 12 per cent were in for drug importation, dealing, manufacturing or cultivating and were not harmless drug users.

The Press Council also noted Mr Rose’s comment: ‘‘I do not know how you could argue with a straight face that fewer people should be imprisoned if 71 per cent of them are violent and sex offenders and a good part of the balance are drug traffickers. Surprisingly few petty non-violent offenders end up in prison in New Zealand.’’

The error in arithmetic went to the very heart of the credibility of one side of the argument over prison numbers.

The council added that this article was promoted as a feature. Generally speaking that is a word used to describe a story which aims to give readers a deeper understanding of a subject. But careless use of statistics, weak analysis and failure to use a graph which the writer relied on left The Dominion Post open to criticism.