Response to Antje Deckert
| Author | Greg Newbold |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0004865817712222 |
| Subject Matter | Response to Antje Deckert |
Response to Antje Deckert
The February 2017 online version of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of
Criminology carries a review of my latest book, Crime, Law and Justice in New
Zealand (Routledge, 2016, pp. 285), written by Antje Deckert.
The book in question is the culmination of 40 years’ experience in teaching and
researching crime and criminal justice in New Zealand. It looks at changing patterns
of crime since Second World War, explaining them in terms of shifting social, political,
and cultural factors. Much of the information used comes from original research I have
published over the years in areas such as white collar crime, domestic violence, policing,
gangs, drugs, organised crime, corrections and the criminal justice system. Before pub-
lication, Routledge sent the manuscript to a group of expert reviewers in New Zealand
and Australia who made useful suggestions for additions and improvements, which I
subsequently included. Then, the script was read by a second group of reviewers who
recommended ‘‘publish as is.’’ The result is a book which I consider one of the best of the
eight I have published so far and it is the only one of its type ever written.
No writer expects his/her work to be beyond critical comment, but every author has
the right to expect reviews to be accurate, balanced and fair. Antje Deckert’s review fails
in all three areas. Rather than provide a reasonable analysis of the book’s strengths and
weaknesses, she seems determined from the outset to tear the book to shreds. Her three-
page review contains not a single positive remark.
The review begins by criticising the introduction for failing to provide a rationale for
the choice or sequence of chapters. A look at the list of chapters shows that I have simply
chosen all major crime areas. The sequence? Well – somewhat obviously, I would have
thought – gender, sex, and violence follow one another, as do drugs and organised crime.
Corrections and crime control sit comfortably at the end. White collar crime fits in well
with dishonesty offending. Does this need explaining?
Deckert then attacks me for using raw reported offending figures rather than per capita
data. She notes that I comment on the reductions in the size of the 15–24 age group as one
reason for falling crime rates. But per capita data would not have reflected this; these data
refer to all age groups and there are no breakdowns for age categories in reported offend-
ing figures. So using per capita data as she suggests would have been pointless.
Next she claims that on p. 3 I suggest that wife-beating is becoming less common
because it is being more rigorously policed. She got the page wrong; the reference is on
p. 1. She has also misread the passage: I do not make that suggestion at all. I quite
clearly state that this is a commonly-advanced explanation (among 33 others that I list)
for international falls in crime rates. It has nothing to do with any opinion of mine.
She accuses me of being inconsistent in saying that business and government fraud is
increasing, in contradiction to a graph I produce. Again, she hasn’t read the passage
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
2017, Vol. 50(4) 635–636
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865817712222
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