Nothing sums up the new Government’s possum in the headlights lack of strategy quite as much as the final decision to build a 500 bed prison at Waikeria.
Not only have the new Government ended up with a solution no one wanted, they’ve actually sown the seeds of their own counterproductive addition to the very Prison Industry they were trying to tame.
Here is the naked truth.
We have thrown a lot of men and women into a barely functioning, violent, over crowded, double bunked prison system that results in 60% of those released reoffending within 2 years.
Our punitive law and order approach is counterproductive, it is eye-wateringly expensive while being grotesquely under-resourced and it can’t create environments where damaged men and woman can be healed, fixed and become functioning members of our society.
The anger within NZ culture at criminals, an anger whipped up by those harvesting victim pain and manipulated by politicians peddling get tough on crime rhetoric, doesn’t want to hear about creating healing environments, they want suffering. So blinded by fear and fury, many forget the loss of liberty is the punishment.
Labour are attempting to reform the prison industry and if they had built the mega prison, they would have made much of that reform talk look bankrupt to their activist base. The new Government are already finding a lack of traction in getting policy implemented is making them look bad in the eyes of their own voting block so decision rather than hesitancy is becoming the deciding factor.
To minimise the prison, the new Government are committing to a build that will still cost $750m rather than 1billion for only a quarter of the beds.
What the new Government should have done, and what I recommended, was a 21st century prison, one that took into account the need for an environment that is safe and healing rather than punitive.
That would have taken courage and vision.
This 500 double bunked mini prison will become over crowded and with a mere 100 beds for mental health, it’s not nearly big enough to do anything meaningful.
So at almost the same cost as the original mega prison, we have a mini one that won’t and can’t do anything to change the culture.
Labour should have thought big rather than this frightened minimisation.
LABOUR are LOSING the battle in the media!
Andrew Little may have been principled and honest and a decent sort of guy, when talking to Lisa Owen on Newshub Nation this morning, but he is LOSING the battle in communication, as usual.
People out there, not just victims and ordinary folk, feeling that crime is a worry, and that being too easy on criminals, may pose increased risks, they matter.
They need clear messages, clear language, and the government better present a damned PLAN of sorts, that is CLEAR in language, all we get is ambiguous, vague comments by the Minister for Justice, and nothing clear at all.
We get this all over this government, yet another working group, yet more ‘consultation’ with the people, so Ardern and Little today, yet we do not get any real idea of what they really want and what they see as fit and useful to get us there.
This endless drivel, ambiguity, uncertain and vague wording, of neither being here or there, about ‘consultation’ among coalition partners, this makes this government look damned weak and for many useless.
Voters and people out there want clear policy, clear language, clear signals, not endless drivel, excused and postponed decision after endless ‘consultations’ and the likes.
That is where this Labour led government is so determined to fail and make this a one term failed government, ffs, get organised and get real, thanks.
“This endless drivel, ambiguity, uncertain and vague wording, of neither being here or there, about ‘consultation’ among coalition partners, this makes this government look damned weak and for many useless”.
Spot on Marc. Constant ‘consultation’ isn’t looking inclusive – it looks like an absence note, and it probably is.
Bottom line is they don’t want to spend/borrow the money necessary for any optimum solutions – they’re neolibs like their predecessors, are likely to further damage already damaged people.
Kelvin Davis is probably constrained by the inner core of lily-livered Labourites more interested in politics and their own political careers than perhaps any people at all.
What do they call it, a ‘clusterfuck’, or what is the word for it?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/104702569/governments-new-doublebunked-prison-cells-at-waikeria-do-not-meet-international-standards
“The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Punishment (CPT) set out the international standards for a one-person cell at six metres square of living space, plus sanitary facility.”
Read that AGAIN, thanks, so we have NZ Inc dodge standards again, like in so many areas, and accept second to third world kind of standards instead, under THIS government that claimed it would want to do so much better, ffs, do I live in reality, or in a parallel universe to none?
And what I heard lately is, about half if not two thirds of cells will be DOUBLE BUNKED, Kelvin Davis should damned well resign after the shit he stirred when Nats were in government, an abysmal failure.
Given that Labour are finally giving us a binding referendum on cannabis law, I expect violent crime to decline, even more than it already is. Prison building, like stadium building, is not about any real need for these buildings, but a need to prop up a dysfunctional building industry that has forgotten how to build affordable housing, and now only knows how to build white elephant mega-projects.
that would be nice – but they aren’t giving us a binding referendum..
they are just giving us more bullshit and outright lies..
jacinda ardern promised reform of prohibition..
..she lied to us..
NZ Criminals are so numerous, you would need to build new Mega prisons every two years to house them individually with their own little mini facilities.
I think having them in rooms of six bunks rather than just double would be adequate. After all, the Crims know they are there for having committed very serious Crime.
I why like to see some recompense be given to Victims of these crims. Serious Compensation. Bit sick of the poor lttle Criminal stuff.
…agree for crimes of theft…pay back in full to the victims
the government should be looking at the roots of crime and putting tax payer money there
….homelessness, unemployment, literacy and remedial education, smaller sentences for trivial crimes and rehabilitation fast…a review of those in prison for trivial offences and an out the door for them with help to get jobs etc
sexual crime against women and children…violence and murder are the only crimes which should have long term custodial sentences…we should be following the Scandanavian model not the USA
Idk? This article from The Gaurdian was pretty good even though a lot of what the produce is garbage.
“Germaine Greer calls for a 200 hr community service penalty and a R tattoo on there hand or cheek for rapists: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/30/germaine-greer-calls-for-punishment-for-to-be-reduced
And I think the same penalty could be applied to financial crime.
And anyway the thing that strikes me about America is that Bernie Sanders is still polling as the most popular politician in America. Not Trump. that just tells me millennials are a lot smarter than I give them credit for and I think they deserve a degree of compassion because there is no question now that they hold the key and the power to humanities collective destruction from the risks of climate induced nuclear war.
[…] we go, another feckless u-turn up there with the TPPA, the mini-prison no one wants and reforms for beneficiaries that never come, the Government have decided that apartments can […]
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