The real issues of sex offenders in the community that Q+A totally miss

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Q+A this morning was a disgrace. They had Crusher Collins on to do her usual tough on crime routine with Sex Offenders and Q+A allowed her to scare monger.

The media who make ratings and profit from hyping up crime have had a field day with sex offenders being moved back into the community.

It’s an easy story that the media never bother to contextualise and that’s why we get the usual bullshit coverage that has no other purpose than to create fear and generate ratings.

Locals living next to sex offenders of course freak out. The areas these offenders are thrown into, are of course poor areas – no one in the media have even bothered to look at the issues around housing for prisoners (except Waatea 5th Estate). They live in shit houses with barely any support and then we wonder why they fall over as quickly as they do.

The ‘stranger danger’ is a dangerous facade because most children are abused by someone the family knows and trusts.

The fundamental issue here are the changes to Parole that occurred in the early 2000s. Before those changes, Prisoners who didn’t cause problems inside prison were given early parole. It was the only mechanism we had inside prison to force individuals to self moderate their behaviour. Because of the get tough on crime changes however (championed by Labour and National) Parole was changed so that prisoners had to do certain things before they could get parole, one of those was rehabilitation.

What has occurred however with sex offenders, is that those who can’t accept their crimes, don’t get any rehabilitation, so they end up serving their entire sentence minus any rehabilitation!

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Then we act surprised when the entire thing falls over?

The Government’s response to these men who have come out more damaged than when they went in is not to acknowledge their punitive private prison experiment has failed and exacerbated the problem, oh no, their solution is to lock these prisoners up forever under ESO and permanent incarceration.

The private prison industry will be laughing all the way to the bank.

We are a nation with the maturity of a day old can of coke, and we push for spiteful counterproductive social policy and then put this dumb look on our face when we see it fall over.

NONE of this was covered by Q+A.

We are a blind society led by a one eyed media.

 

 

 

15 COMMENTS

  1. What has occurred however with sex offenders, is that those who can’t accept their crimes, don’t get any rehabilitation, so they end up serving their entire sentence minus any rehabilitation!

    Are you saying that sex offenders can be rehabilitated without first accepting that they have committed a crime?

    I suspect that may be a hard case to definitively make.

    If rehabilitation is ineffective without the offender firstly accepting that they have committed criminal acts, then all you are arguing for is early release of non-rehabilitated sex offenders.

  2. It is now blatantly obvious that NONE of the systems imposed on society by bankers, corporations and opportunists generate outcomes that benefit society as a whole, and that the whole corrupt system is held together by government propaganda and media complicity.

    Today everything that matters is a little worse than it was yesterday, having been made so by ‘the system’.

    More debt. More mindless consumption. More pollution. More population overshoot. More squalor. More mentally-ill people (and animals). More obesity and obesity-related illness. More stress. More stress-related and lifestyle-related illnesses -especially cancers. More concrete and asphalt. More species on the brink of extinction and more species actually exterminated. More surveillance. More mind control. More fascism. More climate chaos.

    Less time to decouple from fossil fuels. Less sustainability. Less freedom. Less accountability for those in power. Less social cohesion. Less ice. Less fresh water. Less pristine jungle. Less of everything the system requires to maintain itself. Less time until system causes its own collapse.

    • This is the truth that few know, AFEWKNOWTHETRUTH – many thanks for this concise explication of the world’s malaise

  3. “We are a blind society led by a one eyed media.”

    Yes Martyn with her acting as a pure NAZI as they did in 1932 rounding up all the depression left vagrant’s, gypsies, disabled to ship them off to Hitler’s “labour camps” and worse!!!!!

    So history is simply repeating itself, and her indulgence as playing her part in the “Forth Reich”

  4. This is a highly sensitive topic, sexual offending, and particularly against children.

    Q+A now seems to be moderated by Jessica Mutch, who seems to lean towards the right side of politics, it has become evident to me, by watching who they invite to sit as guests being interviewed, and by looking at who is invited and sits on the panel.

    Judith Collins used the opportunity to present her “Crusher” image and hard line on crime, naturally feeling sympathetic with those in the public who want to be informed of former convicted prisoners released in their community.

    The MSM lives from selling stories, and emotive ones sell better, get higher ratings, hence we get endless reporting on hideous crimes, court cases hearing the accused and on sentencing and what follows.

    So here we had Judith as National Minister for Corrections and the Police, interviewed by Jessica, and on the panel there was the wife of a National MP, a somewhat neutral but hardly that outspoken political commentator and Mike Williams, former Labour Party president, who has on many topics been moderately supportive of what this government does (e.g. in welfare but also justice).

    Where was there an expert on the matter, besides of these persons having some vested interests given their political positions? Where was there a scientist having studied what goes on.

    Statistics by Statistics NZ do not help much, I looked it up, and they lump offences into groups, we cannot really see whether there has been an increase or decrease in such crimes (reported or convicted or both).

    Rehabilitation only has a chance of success if the participant acknowledges problems, same as is the case with addiction. If a person does not want to believe they have a problem, then you will hardly succeed with forcing people to attend rehabilitation. And with those in prison who refuse to do any rehabilitation program, they will likely return to society with unresolved “issues”.

    So I can understand that in such cases Corrections and the public have serious and valid concerns.

    But with having people’s identity revealed, or public registers or announcements made to the public that a rehabilitation candidate, or a released prisoner lives in the neighbourhood, any social re-integration is likely to fail from the start.

    People have fears, and by nurturing fear, it will not help rehabilitation.

    Studies were done, one found here also mentions experiences in Europe, but like many other studies done by experts, this government has a habit of dismissing them, ignoring or burying them, so we never try to act upon provided advice:
    http://www.lawfoundation.org.nz/?p=2071

    I fear we will go further backwards down the road again, where for the sake of protection and prevention we will return to a situation where we have more of “throwing away the key and lock them up for the rest of their lives”. And Collins even considers returning to past treatment of mentally ill, by institutionalising them.

    I doubt that this is the way to go, certainly it cannot be for most of the affected. But with Corrections also having made bad mistakes, and things going wrong, those wanting better social outcomes will not be given much of a chance.

    Here Correction’s status quo approach:
    http://www.corrections.govt.nz/working_with_offenders/community_sentences/employment_and_support_programmes/release-and-management-of-sexual-offenders.html

      • Smoke screens Collins is using now to deflect the elephant in the room.

        This is that we now live in a ‘sick society’ full of P and drugs, and National’s solution?

        After National has been carefully creating a sick society in the last eight years, they are now resorting to lock anyone up no matter who they are with new draconian rules and surveillance powers.

        Just as happened in pre-war Germany folks, so we have been set up for a similar journey now.

        Remember Hitler was a master at deception as key/SS Joyce is so beware.

        We need to get our half rights to seize our public media back now opposition otherwise we loose.

  5. I have grandchildren. I have no problem at all if those who have sexually assaulted children are locked up forever. My grandchildren’s rights to safety trump their rights to freedom a thousandfold.

    • While I understand your fear and sensitivity when it comes to your grandchildren, maybe you consider that we are dealing with people who are SICK, as it is NOT NORMAL to feel sexually attracted to little children, that is by our common standards.

      So is it right then to treat ALL sick people with such issues, a tiny minority in our population, as having to all be locked away for the rest of their lives? Do you really think that rehabilitation should not be tried, at least with most, where there may well be a chance of reforming the persons who may have committed such offences?

      We are sadly heading back into the dark ages, I fear, where we label people and lump them all into one group of “guilty”.

      Be mindful also, that a 15 year old is legally a child, and while we live in a time where teenagers may mature physically somewhat earlier than they may have done two or so decades ago, there is the fact that some are sexually active, and may even have some contacts with persons older than them, perhaps just marginally (being 16, 17 or 18).

      Then it is though considered as having a sexual relationship with a minor, as the age of consent is 16.

      What I mean to say is, when we hear media report on child sex offences, this is often involving teenagers who have not reached the age of consent yet, and it may not involve children that or say 6 year or so.

      The way the media reporting is done is often not helpful. Some facts are often not mentioned or detailed.

      Rehabilitation must be made available to most, and offenders and people at risk of offending must be encouraged to seek treatment, except perhaps for those extreme, hard cases, where rehabilitation may simply not be possible or even refused.

      Don’t throw out the baby with the bathtub.

      An even greater problem now is the apparent increase of use and sharing of illicit pictures and so via the internet, but that is yet another sensitive area to deal with. There definitely are people who are somehow “sick” and have personality issues, who indulge in such activities.

      Prison may be the wrong place, and for those few extreme cases that cannot be helped, other supported mental health institutions may indeed be a solution.

      • Thank you Mike in Auck. Yes, they are sick. Yes, they are not normal. Whether prison, or a (secure) supported mental health institution, I don’t mind. Whether rehabilitation/reforming would work in a majority (which might be optimistic), even if one reoffends, that liberalism is too heavy a price.

        You use the word ‘offences’, which we also use for those who drive too fast, or drop rubbish by the roadside. This is rose-tintism. You need to consider what actually happens in the anal or vaginal rape of a small child. This is a crime outside of just about every other type of crime, and — in my view — justifies draconian response, however liberal one might be in other aspects of one views.

        Lock them away.

        • Offence is the technical description, for breaking a law, and of course there are some more serious criminal offences than others.

          I was simply meaning the breaking of the law.

          But I do not share your view that appears to generalise too much, the serious and high risk offenders need to be taken care of, for sure, but I am sure that more can be treated, if given the proper treatment approach and needed support and monitoring.

  6. One thing the MSM have totally ignored, probably intentionally.
    If National is supposedly so tough on crime, how come recently a sex offender who was reported to be serving “preventative detention” was able to get parole and escape?
    Perhaps my legal understanding is not too great but I thought that when someone was sentenced to preventative detention that meant they were in prison indefinitely with no chance of parole because they were too much of a danger to the community to ever be let out?
    But this person was. Why?
    Is this an example of how tough National is on crime?
    Perhaps one of our resident right-wing trolls might like to try and spin them out of this one!
    This should be good!

  7. Easy to sit in your armchair and whine about the poor sex offenders but you seem to have forgotten cases like the rape and murder of Blessie Gotingco by Tony Robinson. Everyone knew he was going to re-offend given the opportunity.

    The reality is that our legal system lets men back into the community who have been professionally assessed as having ‘a high risk of re-offending’ before they leave jail.

    Sick or not, the community has a right to be protected from them.

  8. Martyn, did you note the irony of the item about child poverty on your homepage sitting just opposite this link to child offenders? Pro child and — frankly — anti child commentaries cheek by jowl?

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