Scathing Criticism: Sir David Carruthers, Chair of the Independent Police Complaints Authority, criticised the officers assigned to the Roastbusters' case for having "failed to adhere to the basic tenets of any form of criminal investigation."
WHEN A FORMER High
Court Judge decides that a group of Police officers couldn’t pass “Policing 101”,
it’s worrying. But, when he goes on to say that the officers tasked with
investigating the notorious Roastbuster abusers of underage girls “failed to adhere to the basic
tenets of any form of criminal investigation”, it’s time to get angry – very
angry. Because what Sir David Carruthers, Chair of the Independent Police Complaints
Authority (IPCA) is telling New Zealanders, is that their Police Force cannot
be trusted to do its job.
But Sir David’s scathing commentary is only the most
explicit message emerging from the Roastbusters inquiry. A close reading of the
IPCA’s report reveals a reality much darker than mere incompetence. Deep within
the Police, an apparently ineradicable culture of misogyny continues to thwart
every attempt to improve the Force’s handling of rape and sexual abuse cases.
What is it that prevents these misogynists from being
exposed and rooted out? Because, Lord knows, the official Police policy on rape
and sexual abuse could not be clearer. Senior officers are constantly being
brought up to speed on the issue at seminars and conferences. The protocols and
procedures are equally clear. But still, only one out of every 99 rapes
reported to the Police ends with the rapist being convicted and imprisoned.
Clearly, the policy is not being enforced. Why?
Part of the answer may be found in this morning’s (20/3/15) NZ Herald. Columnist Paul Thomas
suggests that, in both Britain and New Zealand, society is, increasingly, separating
itself into two groups: “The divide is between what might be called enlightened
metropolitan opinion (EMO), aka the chattering classes, aka the forces of
political correctness, and popular opinion (PO), aka the silent majority, aka
the great unwashed.”
Thomas clearly locates himself in the camp of PO. Right
alongside John Key. The Prime Minister’s political success, opines Thomas, is
attributable to his being “someone who speaks our language, the voice of bluff,
non-PC common sense.”
A Distinct Minority: Early New Zealand was an overwhelmingly masculine society. One whose members were never entirely sure where women fitted in. Contemporary New Zealand's staunchly masculine culture still struggles to create spaces in which women feel comfortable.
This description of society as an endless battle between the
forces of urban vice and rural virtue has a very lengthy pedigree in New
Zealand. In spite of the fact that ours has been an overwhelmingly urban
society for well over a century, New Zealanders (especially male New
Zealanders) still like to think of themselves as worthy descendants of the
sturdy settlers who tamed the wilderness with axe and plough.
Though most of them live in the country’s largest cities,
they nevertheless think of themselves as self-sufficient men; rugged
individualists who prize practical knowledge over “book-learning”. They want the
country to be run by sensible blokes like themselves. Blokes who can be relied
upon to use their common-sense and not be influenced by intellectuals and
so-called “experts” who would like nothing better than to tie up the whole
world in politically-correct knots.
The great problem with this “sturdy settler” (Southern Man?)
role model is that it was forged in a world without women. Or, at least, a
world in which women were for a long time a distinct minority.
The overwhelmingly masculine culture it produced is one in
which physical prowess counts for much more than intellectual or creative
endeavour. Sport, and the barely suppressed violence that sport redirects and
absorbs, is its most pervasive artefact. It’s an authoritarian culture that
expects to be obeyed and which finds it next-to-impossible to tolerate dissent
and debate.
It is also a culture which has never quite worked out where
women fit into it. The Kiwi bloke’s hackneyed lament: that he can’t live with the
female of the species, but also can’t live without her – is hardly a sentiment
to put Kiwi women at their ease. Especially when it leads New Zealand’s good
keen men to look upon “the little woman” as simply another piece of gear to be
stashed in the back of the ute, along with the footy-boots, fishing rods, and a
few dozen cold ones. By this reckoning, women become mere adjuncts to otherwise
masculine pursuits: something to make the evening go better – like beer.
The Police Force – so overwhelmingly male, and so
demonstrably steeped in New Zealand’s rigidly masculine culture – in large part
still sees itself as an institution dedicated to upholding and defending
Thomas’s “popular opinion”. The policies of “enlightened metropolitan opinion”
foisted upon them by left-wing politicians and radical feminists, may require
them to pay lip service to the goal of eliminating New Zealand’s “Rape Culture”;
but the “common sense” of real men, good men, strong men reassures them that
“boys will be boys” – and that girls like it that way.
This essay was posted
on The Daily Blog and Bowalley
Road on Saturday, 21 March 2015.
