Commie Pervert Geek Girl, Aug 2004
Originally published in Express

Don Brash thinks we need an "all-out assault on crime" - harsher sentences, more prisons, more police. Perhaps this is something the queer community should be supporting. After all, we are disproportionately affected by crime in a society where homophobia is still far too prevalent. However, I have my doubts.

Any recommendations from a party consisting largely of homophobes should be treated with a degree of scepticism, and it this case it doesn't take much research to see that doubts are well founded. "Getting tough on crime" simply doesn't act as a deterrent, and the cost of locking more people up for longer is high, both economically and socially. Ex-convicts seldom develop a new found respect for the law and tolerance for minorities.

The United States is very tough on crime by international standards, with a rate of imprisonment more than four times our own. Yet their crime rates are still much higher, including hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation. Is this an example we want to follow?

Instead, we should be investigating why people become criminals, and how some people come to see homophobia and violence as acceptable.

One of the most high-profile hate crimes of recent years was the murder of Matthew Shepard. What do we know about his killers? They were both young men from troubled family backgrounds, who barely scraped by on low wage jobs and lived in trailer parks. They had no prospects, American college fees being far beyond their means. It was hardly surprising that they got caught up in drugs and petty crime.

Their background was no excuse for their actions, of course. Many, many people live in poverty without becoming criminals and killers. But if they had been given access to a decent education and secure employment at a decent wage, it seems likely that they could have turned out quite differently.

Hard statistics are difficult to come by, but the Matthew Shepard case does not appear to have been unusual. Closer to home, for example, Jeff Whittington was murdered by an unemployed man and his friend. The link between crime and poverty should not be a surprise - the poor have much to envy, and little to loose. Capitalist society blames the them for their own predicament, encouraging them to find scapegoats on whom to take out their frustration. Scapegoats like us.

Poverty isn't the sole cause of crime, but it is undoubtedly a major factor. If we want to create a safer, more tolerant society, then halving the gap between rich and poor would be of far more benefit than doubling the capacity of our prisons.