Prisoners are human beings.
They are not monsters.
Some do monstrous things, some commit crimes of such breathtaking cruelty and malicious intent they make us doubt love, goodness and kindness, but they are still, beyond their actions, human beings with intrinsic value and human rights.
The fact we refuse to acknowledge that, the fact we have allowed media crime porn, the sensible sentencing lynch mob and unscrupulous ‘get tough on crime’ politicians to manipulate our fear and anger is why we have an incarceration rate through the roof despite declining crime rates.
Look at the way the media sensationalise crime for ratings, look at the way they can’t help but reframe and dehumanise Stewart Murray Wilson as the ‘Beast of Benheim’ in this news story from last week. If the NZ media thought they could get away with calling Stewart Murray Wilson the Tentacled Vampire Monster from Mars, they would.
Nothing epitomises our bloodlust and manipulated anger than the news story every media outlet covers every Christmas Day. Without fail, some newspaper somewhere in NZ publishes the Christmas menu for prisoners with the accompanying scream from some Sensible Sentencing Troll that their victims won’t be getting any of that!
Representing a lump of cold roast chook and two roasted potatoes as a malicious slap in the face to the victims of crime would be funny if it weren’t so damaged.
That National were cheered when they stripped prisoners of their right to vote should be viewed as a low point in our development as a people.
The punishment handed out to those who seriously breach our laws is a loss of liberty. For a species as communal as ours, there is no greater punishment. Needing to add suffering to that loss of liberty by portraying prisoners as subhuman isn’t justice, it’s vengeance and until we as a nation are prepared to look in the mirror and ask why we need vengeance over justice, we as a culture can not advance.
We have become as imprisoned in our anger and fear as the prisoners we lock up. The irony in that is terribly sad.
Wilson has had the nickname “the Beast of Blenheim” since the nineties. It’s apt because his crimes included bestiality.
Wilson is as close to a ‘monster’ as it gets and if he’d been sentenced under our current rules, he would have been a candidate for preventative detention, never to have been released.
However, that was not an option in the nineties and now, at the end of his sentence, he has relative freedom. It’s worth noting that he’s been seen in Whanganui on supervised shopping and recreational visits. As far as I know, the locals have treated him with respect. He hasn’t been abused or assaulted, which is not something his family members can say.
The wider point of the post is spot on. We jail far too many people, and for too long. We jail a disproportionately high number of PI and maori men and women.
There is an orchestrated campaign of red necked frothing which does nothing to make NZ safer. The irony of the Senseless Sentencing Trust being represented by a man convicted of fucking with a dead baby is almost beyond comprehension. Well, at least until you find out that the American NRA is run by a retired gun runner and drug dealer.
Hypocrisy is the enemy of societal progress. We don’t need new prisons. We do need to put meaning into the lives of our prisoners and we do need to rehabilitate them before release.
To borrow the words of Norm Kirk, we need to give our criminals “Someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work and something to hope for.”
People with aroha, housing, work and hope shouldn’t end up back in prison.
Hi Te Reo Putake
I always enjoy your writings.
I agree that it is stupid to abuse criminals. But equally it is not sensible to applaud their wrong doing.
For some reason however, people who want to lesson crime – and incarceration rates – never mention the Victim. Why does the victim have to be heroic beyond measure while the criminal does not have to see to his faults ? Why is that ?
You say ” …we do need to rehabilitate them (the criminals) before release”. But no one other than the Criminal can rehabilitate himself.
Also, You have to commit a really big crime to get put in prison in Aotearoa. So, I think that complaining about people disliking crime is a bit unlikely to wash.
If PI and Maori are more in number than some other ethnic groups, then the Elders might like to examine the reasons for that and stop blaming everyone else.
Most PI and Maori are very fine people. “Maori Against Crime” would be a great project. It would bring lots of happiness to many people.
At the same time, much more crime, on a daily basis, is committed by Pakeha. Such as forcing up exorbitant Rentals. Exorbitant Fuel Costs. Making staff work for no Pay. Abusing Cafe staff – in Parnell. Using Bribes and Sweetners in Contracts.
These should be made Criminal Offences with long term Prison sentences. Then we could have “Pakeha Against Crime ” project.
We over look Capitalist Pakeha Crime, while noticing other ethnic crime.
The Crown must fix that soonest – in my opinion.
I agree with your comments Martyn. They want to de-humanise people.
On the news tonight was a young man who has been sentence to 20 years for strangling his girlfriend. The woman’s family outside the court did not think this was sufficient – justice has not been done apparently.
I fear that if we had a referendum on capital punishment tomorrow that the majority would want this.
The SS Trust are a real danger in our society, punitive endless punishing. People who have shitty lives as kids I am sure are more likely to end up in this stupid system we have because we have followed the American model.
I am astonished that Labour doesn’t seem to have had a clear idea before the election of what to do about the bourgening prison population. Decent jobs, decent housing, food on the table that is what gives people respect and a good feeling a about themselves.
Hi Michal
You said:
“On the news tonight was a young man who has been sentence to 20 years for strangling his girlfriend. The woman’s family outside the court did not think this was sufficient – justice has not been done apparently.”
You are somewhat dismissive of the strangled girlfriend. And her family.
The criminal will breathe for decades. The Girl Friend has been exterminated. And her family should shut their mouths up.
Do you have a daughter Michal? You heart is with criminals not with decent people. You are sick.
Aristotle would have said that he has excluded himself from Society. I agree with Aristotle. Normal people do.
The Prisons are full because we do not recognise murder Crime for what it is. Murderers are not little children gone astray. They are the utter lowlife evil of the species.
Manslaughter is not Murder.
This is about making sure we hate the same enemies.
Much of what you say is reasonable. Many of those committing lesser offences should not be in jail (aka University of Crime).
But I shudder at your defence of people like the “Beast of Blenheim”. If I go to the link you provide, I see that ” . . . Among the charges were rape, stupefying, bestiality, ill treatment of children and indecent assault, including revelations he made his daughter eat from a bowl with cats. He also forced his de facto partner to have sex with other women and the family dog.” It surprises me you could be so on-his-side, you being a father of a young daughter, who you do from time to time mention with an obvious loving fatherliness.
Technically, you may be correct in saying the B of B is “still, beyond [his] actions, [a] human being”. But I note Observer Tokoroa’s comment that “Aristotle would have said that he has excluded himself from Society”, and I prefer Aristotle’s philosophy to yours.
It may be easy, on the sidelines, to advocate for the worst of the worst; but this reflects, it seems to me, a callousness on your part towards the families left behind. You need to think yourself into the shoes of the husband of Blessie Gotincto, or the parents of Sophie Elliot.
Kia ora Tom, thank you for you thoughts but I have to strenuously push back on your assertion that I am ‘defending’ Stewart Murray Wilson in any way shape or form as that is a grotesque interpretation of what I’m saying here.
I am not defending his horrific crimes, I am pointing out that the media presentation of him as a monster is deeply problematic and part of the culture that has robbed us of reason and ethical justice. The media manipulate your outrage for ratings, they don’t do it as a public service and in turn that outrage becomes septic and pollutes all debate. Our current tough on crime rhetoric that is fed and fuelled by this outrage currently has 300 prisoners inside our prison system right now because they were caught without a driver license.
Just think about that for a second, our crime debate has become so toxic and damaged that we readily think placing 300 NZ citizens inside fucking prison for driving without a licence is a solution.
We need to take the vengeance, fear and hate out of social policy because if we don’t we get system that seems to think 300 people inside prison for driving without a licence is an acceptable position.
I’ve called out bloggers in the past for complaining about certain controversial people being ‘humanised’ by the media. That particular term irks me for a few reasons, the main one being that it arrogantly implies that those wretched persons’ despicable behaviours are not a product of the same social constructs as the rest of us. It absolves ourselves of any potential responsibility without even needing to question it, and disregards the ‘but for the grace of god’ aspect of a disenfranchised citizen acting out in lieu of the opportunities and privileges we take for granted.
Of course I’m not saying we’re all culpable for one person’s heinous crimes, but it behooves us all to treat these societal aberrations with a degree of humility.
Martyn and Tom, respect to you both. This is one of those occassions where I can see both points of view.
The question basically becomes distilled down to how do we deal with “monsters”, whether Murray Wilson or Adolph Hitler who have committed vile acts removing themselves from social norms. How does society deal with a person who chooses to be outside society?
I have no simple answers to that.
One point I will make is that society does not descend to the level of the “monster”. Otherwise what is the difference and why should we condemn the “monster” when we adopt his (a)moral norms.
Thank you for reminding us of Sophie Elliot. Her mother founded the Sophie Elliot Foundation which in conjunction with the NZ Police and the MSD, takes a program into schools teaching students about the warning signs of the controllers who go on to abuse batter torture and murder their partners.
What her parents live with now, is likely a type of hell.
The Foundation is possibly the best way I know of in NZ to help to avoid these tragedies and it would be good if it were available to all students nationwide.
Had something like this existed when I was young, then maybe the women of my generation who were conditioned to stay in our marriages may not have suffered the dreadful damaging abuse which I can assure you, one never really recovers from.
“Nothing epitomises our bloodlust and manipulated anger than the news story every media outlet covers every Christmas Day. Without fail, some newspaper somewhere in NZ publishes the Christmas menu for prisoners with the accompanying scream from some Sensible Sentencing Troll that their victims won’t be getting any of that”
Funny how those who call prisons a ” holiday resort” arent so keen to line up to go inside.
Pedal to the Metal
That is an interesting idea of yours to release people from custody if they do not obey the important Rules of the Road.
We don’t kill anywhere near enough people on the roads here in Aotearoa. Do we ? I say, release the morons.
They could kill 50 Girlfriend passengers each weekend in stolen cars !
Yippee. Lets hear it for our morons !
We, as a [western] species, have reached critical mass. We’re about to be culled.
So, a nice cup of tea and a ginger nut then?
When the people ‘inside’ are msm-harvested as a frisson for the sadistic, narcissistic masses? Yep. Time to go. Clean slate. Think spraying the bench top followed by a nice wipe down.
Seen this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_for_Zachariah_(film)
Z for Zachariah.
Shot in Port Levy and Mt Somers NZ. Stars Margo Robbie, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Chris Pine. Disturbingly innocent. A bit spesh’ in my view. Entirely underrated by the root/shoot/car chase/torture culture.
Craig Zobel, the Director’s a great guy. Here’s another one of his.
‘Compliance’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compliance_(film)
Where we abdicate all responsibility is in accepting that we create and manage the society and culture that is the crucible of criminal behaviour.
It mirrors that principle of capitalism “privatise profits, socialise losses” with “attribute success to society, failure to the individual”.
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