Foreword | Acknowledgements | Tables & Figures | Executive Summary | Introduction | Levels of knowledge about crime and the criminal justice system | Attitudes to criminal justice professionals | Crime seriousness | Sentencing practice | Aims of sentencing | General discussion/concluding remarks | References | Appendices
1.1 National surveys overseas
1.2 Research at home
1.3 The present study
1.4 Methodology
1.5 Limitations
1.6 Outline of report
This report presents the findings from the first comprehensive national survey of the views of a sample of adult New Zealanders about crime and the criminal justice system’s response to crime. A random sample of 1500 New Zealanders aged 18 years and over responded to a range of questions, including questions about the relative seriousness of some crimes, the aims of sentencing and their preferred choices of sentence for some crimes. We also questioned them about their knowledge of some crime and criminal justice statistics.
The New Zealand public has long been fascinated with crime and the sentencing of offenders, yet no nation-wide survey has previously been specifically designed to obtain the public’s views on these issues alone. We wanted to find answers to questions such as: what views do the public hold about sentencing? how much do New Zealanders know about crime and the criminal justice system?
Why canvas public opinion about crime and the criminal justice system? Roberts (1992) documented the following three reasons in his review (p. 127–129):
The public’s reaction to crime and sentencing has intrigued criminologists for many years. Since the 1960s, the overseas research literature has grown enormously, reflecting increasing research activity into a wide range of topics of relevance to the criminal justice system. Several books (for example, Walker & Hough 1988; Flanagan & Longmire 1996; Roberts & Stalans 1997; Hough & Roberts 1998) and reviews (for example, Roberts 1992) have been devoted to documenting and analysing the findings of relevant polls and surveys.
Public opinion polls and surveys have been widely used over several decades in the United States to ascertain Americans’ views concerning crime and justice. In neighbouring Canada, several nation-wide polls were conducted in the mid 1980s to elicit the views of the Canadian public on many sentencing issues (Canadian Sentencing Commission 1987). However, the polls and surveys conducted in both countries were generally conducted by researchers whose main interests were in market research and political polling. More recently, with its National Opinion Survey on Crime and Justice, the United States conducted its first comprehensive, in-depth national assessment of public attitudes toward a wide variety of crime and criminal justice issues (Flanagan & Longmire 1996).
Over the past two decades, British and Welsh householders have been regularly surveyed about their attitudes to crime and criminal justice as part of the British Crime Survey. Set up in 1982, these large face-to-face surveys of adults living in England and Wales have been repeated in 1984, 1987, 1992, 1994, 1996 and 1998 (for the more recent surveys see, for example, Hough & Roberts 1998; Mirrlees-Black et al. 1998; Kershaw et al. 2000). While the main purpose of these surveys is to monitor trends in crimes against those living in private households, the surveys also cover a range of other topics, including attitudes to crime and criminal justice, and sentencing preferences.
In the Netherlands, the Research and Documentation Centre of the Ministry of Justice first conducted a national survey on attitudes towards crime and crime control in 1975. Key components of the survey were replicated as an annexe to the Dutch national victim survey in 1982 and as a separate survey in 1985 (van Dijk & Steinmetz 1988).
Across the Tasman, the Australian Institute of Criminology first commissioned a nation-wide survey of crime and punishment in 1986. A representative cross-section of Australians were asked to rank the seriousness of 13 crimes and to allocate their preferred punishment for each of the crimes (Wilson et al. 1986; Walker et al. 1987). The following year, two further nation-wide surveys were commissioned, about attitudes towards police and police services (Swanton et al. 1988a; Swanton et al. 1988b) and towards domestic violence (Office of the Status of Women 1988).
The findings of other research will be considered in relation to the findings of the current survey in each section of the report. Our discussion will focus in the main on findings from studies undertaken prior to the time of the current survey.
While no nation-wide survey focussing solely on attitudes towards crime and criminal justice issues has previously been conducted in New Zealand, some studies have touched on related topics. For example, in 1996, the National Survey of Crime Victims (Young et al. 1997) asked 5000 adult New Zealanders a range of questions about crime in their neighbourhoods. These questions were asked as part of a survey which was primarily designed to provide an alternative measure to police statistics of crime victimisation. This survey was repeated five years later (Morris et al. 2003).
Within the last ten years, some small ad hoc, localised studies of the public’s perceptions of crime and crime seriousness have been conducted here. In the early 1990s, a study of 115 Christchurch residents was carried out to determine their perceptions of the relative seriousness of 25 crimes (Davis & Kemp 1994). Later in the decade, a study of 273 Auckland City residents was undertaken to find out Aucklanders’ views about crime (Shirley et al. 1998).
Public opinion of the criminal justice system has also been the topic of a few theses. In an early study, Ransom (1981) examined public opinion on sentencing of criminal offenders. Stephen Lyon’s thesis (1990) examined public opinion on the law and order issue in New Zealand since 1975. More recently, Bratcher (1997) surveyed 181 New Zealanders on their attitudes concerning the seriousness of criminal offences, appropriate sanctions and punitive and rehabilitative sentiment towards offenders.
The overall aim of the present survey was to assess the public’s attitudes towards, and knowledge about, crime and the criminal justice system. We also wanted to assess the public’s level of knowledge about crime and some criminal justice issues, including their knowledge of the criminal law and actual sentencing practice.
Specifically, the survey objectives were to:
The main sample comprising 1006 adults was drawn from 1500 households in 14 locations throughout New Zealand. The locations were defined in terms of region and area type and were designed to ensure a fully representative cross-section of the New Zealand population aged 18 years and over (see Appendix 1 for details).
Only one adult per household was interviewed face to face by a trained ACNielsen interviewer between 6 March and 2 May 1999. The response rate (total completed interviews as a percentage of the total occupied households approached) was 71%.
The main sample was supplemented with ‘booster’ samples of 250 Mäori and 250 Pacific Peoples adults aged 18 years and over. Due to their smaller total population size, the locations for the Māori and Pacific samples were reduced to five locations throughout New Zealand. Again, only one adult per household was interviewed face-to-face.
The weighting process for the survey consisted of two main steps. First, respondents were weighted to compensate for their different selection probabilities. Then rim weighting was applied to align the survey results with known population figures for age, sex and ethnicity.
In general, respondents weren’t provided with a ‘don’t know’ option in response to a question. Rather, they were encouraged to provide a best guess. Accordingly, unless otherwise stated, a response of ‘don’t know’ or a refusal is excluded from the analysis presented in this report.
A pre-test of the draft questionnaire was carried out in June 1998. Changes to the questionnaire were made, and the questionnaire was re-tested in a pilot survey comprising 50 interviews conducted 4–14 February 1999.
Not all the material collected as part of the survey is presented in this report. Material not included relates to some new questions developed from overseas research. An independent expert reviewer subsequently pointed out a deficiency in some aspects of the development of these questions, which relate to the severity of the sentence (including the substitution of a fine) likely to have been imposed for some crimes. For this reason, responses relating to this part of the questionnaire are not presented in this report.
Survey method
We deliberately chose a stand-alone survey to obtain a broad national picture of the public’s attitudes towards, and knowledge about, crime and some criminal justice issues. This gave us more precise control of the design process than simply attaching questions to an existing omnibus survey. It allowed us to cover a wide range of issues using a highly structured questionnaire administered in face-to-face interviews with 1500 adult New Zealanders. However, in canvassing such a wide range of issues in interviews of about forty minutes in length, we could not hope to obtain information of any great depth.
Snapshot taken in March, April and May 1999
Public opinion on issues such as crime and sentencing is dynamic. Flanagan (1996) reminds us that opinions on these issues are ‘subject to both long-term shifts and to seismic changes due to catastrophic events’.
The survey findings represent a ‘snapshot’ of public opinion taken during March, April and May 1999. We could not avoid the survey being conducted in the context of a news media whose crime reporting is biased towards the reporting of serious violent crimes, such as murders (McGregor 1993).[1] However, by holding the survey in March, April and May 1999, we hoped to avoid the period in the run-up to the general election when law and order issues, particularly discussion of the referendum question about reforming the criminal justice system, were likely to be very prominent in the media. As it turned out, the survey was conducted about 6 months out from the general election in November 1999.
Response rate
The findings reported here are only of those members of the public who were approached and who agreed to participate in the survey. We made a considerable effort to get a high response rate. Our efforts included a letter drop to all households likely to be involved in the main survey about 3–4 days prior to the interviewer commencing interviews in the area and an introductory letter that was available in English, Mäori or Sämoan depending on the preferences of the door-opener. Only one person per household was approached for an interview. The final response rate was 74% for the main survey, 72% for the additional Mäori sample and 66% for the additional Pacific Peoples sample.
Question wording and ordering
Methodological details such as question wording and question ordering are consequential in public opinion research (for example, Dyer 1996). There are an infinite number of ways to pose questions about crime and sentencing. For the most part, the final questionnaire was built up by copying and modifying questions from other national surveys – primarily from the British Crime Survey. We were aware that in making the modifications we did, we were limiting our ability to compare our findings with those of other similar surveys.
The order of the questions within the survey may influence the response (for example, Mayhew 1995). We deliberately asked the attitudes questions before those on knowledge, in an attempt to play down the ‘test’ element. Personal detail questions such as ‘Have you ever been convicted of an offence?’ were asked towards the end of the interview. Our choice of ordering may well have affected the comparability of our findings with other surveys that covered the same issues but asked questions in a different order.
Validity
We do not know whether respondents gave us their honest opinions. We were advised that in a face-to-face survey situation, some Pacific Peoples respondents, in particular, might feel pressured into giving responses to please the interviewer rather than giving their own honest opinion or expressing their lack of opinion. However, following consultation with the Ministry’s Pacific Peoples focus group and some researchers with expertise in undertaking research with Pacific Peoples, we decided to proceed using a single research method that would allow us to compare findings across ethnic groups without the extra difficulty of comparing findings across different research methods. In doing so, we incorporated some ‘don’t know’ options into question responses in the hope that respondents might feel more at ease in expressing a lack of opinion.
The report presents the main findings from the survey. Chapter two focusses on respondents’ levels of knowledge about crime and the criminal justice system. Chapter three examines attitudes to criminal justice professionals and Chapter four examines perceptions of crime seriousness. Chapter five presents responses to questions asking respondents to sentence people convicted of six crimes, and Chapter six presents their views on the aims of sentencing. Results are drawn to a conclusion in Chapter seven. The first Appendix provides a detailed description of the methodology used.
Footnotes
1 In a small study we conducted of three daily newspapers during the data collection phase, we counted 419 crime stories - 91 related to crimes of murder.