By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

shown in Table 1. Of these, seven were omitted as they did not refer specifically tothe above organisations 24 .Table 1. Reference to specific influential individuals, victims’ groups, and prison reform groupsin the Dominion Post and the New Zealand Herald from 01 January 2004 to 31 December 2004.The Dominion Post and The New Zealand Herald 2004Representative or Quote Reference to Organisation TotalVictim Support 16 17 33Sensible Sentencing Trust 25 32 57Rape Crisis 3 2 5Howard League for Penal Reform 8 2 10Professor John Pratt 2 n/a 2Prisoners' Aid and Rehabilitation Society 9 5 14In the analysis of the newspaper articles, it was noted whether the article used therepresentative of the organisation (or the individual), either with a direct reference,or with a quote. An example of an article that fell into this category noted that‘Victim Support chief executive Laureen Outtrim said the decision was a landmark’(Yandall, 1999: Par. 10). Alternatively, if the article simply mentioned the group orindividual but no opinion or interview details were reported then it was placed in thecategory ‘reference to organisation’. For example, ‘Somehow or other VictimSupport got an email that went astray …’ (Watkins, 2004: A1). Here, theorganisation is mentioned but its views are not used in the article.The frequency with which the Sensible Sentencing Trust is mentioned in the press ishighlighted when examining the data. Victim Support is cited on 33 occasions, withinformation from the group being used in the article on 16 occasions. In contrast, theTrust was mentioned 57 times in the two main newspapers combined, as well asfrequently being used as a provider of information, with 25 articles having a‘representative or quote’. This illustrates how dominant the Sensible SentencingTrust has become in shaping crime and punishment news, and contradicts the view24An example of this can be seen in an article where the journalist stated the following: ‘most of thedegenerates whose crimes against society have landed them in prison deserve a good scrubbing …[r]ather than terming that an infringement on their human rights. I like to think of it as sensiblesentencing’ (Te Radar, 2004: Par. 1). Here the article is not using ‘Sensible Sentencing’ as the title ofthe organisation, but as a descriptive verb. Furthermore, it was not a representative from theorganisation being interviewed.50