By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

which comes a dramatic increase up until 2006, followed by a small decline. WhileNew Zealand’s imprisonment rate was increasing, paradoxically, the crime rate haddeclined, peaking in 1992 at 131 per 100,000 of the population before undergoing aseries of fluctuations and stabilising at 99 per 100,000 of population in 2004 as seenin Figure 2.140Recorded Crime Per 1,000 of population1201008060402001988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007Year (Calander Year)Figure 2: Recorded Crime in New Zealand per 1,000 of Population from 1988 to 2007 (NewZealand Police, 2001, 2008).This thesis addresses the phenomenon of growing imprisonment at a time ofdeclining crime by examining the significant social, political, and economic changesthat have taken place in New Zealand from the early post­1945 (post­war) years tothe present. It will be argued that these changes, along with evolving cultural values,have contributed to a punitive shift in penal policymaking. Drawing on keycommentators who have addressed these issues (such as Bottoms, 1995; Garland,2001; Loader, 2006; Pratt, 2007, 2008; Pratt & Clark, 2005; Roberts, Stalans,Indermaur, & Hough, 2003), the thesis explores the rise of anti­crime, pro­victimlobby groups in New Zealand, which have become increasingly influential in theimplementation of penal policy. The thesis will explore how New Zealand, from1999, became particularly vulnerable to penal populism (discussed below).estimates are based on all those people specified in the census including overseas visitors and thoseNew Zealand residents temporarily overseas meaning there are frequent fluctuations in the de factopopulation in New Zealand.8