Andrew Little is losing the Prison reform debate…
Big Read: Andrew Little ducks for cover as National forecasts tragedy from justice reform
The battle lines are drawn on crime and justice reform and Minister of Justice Andrew Little is in a bunker.It’s not a great place for a first-term minister but the National Party has driven him there by virtue of how it has stolen a march on precious territory over contested ground.
The struggle Little faces is over possible changes to bail, parole and sentencing laws.
Labour had pledged to cut the prison population by 30 per cent in 15 years and Little has talked of possible changes to those laws.
To meet that target, experts in the field agree those laws will need to be changed.
In the past two weeks, the NZ Herald has asked Little’s office on four occasions for interviews on proposed changes.On three occasions, Little’s office has assured that he will call. On each of those occasions, he has not.
…the problem Little faces is an electorate who have had the bejesus scared out of them by mainstream media crime porn and a smarter move for Little would be to actively attack the media directly over scaring New Zealanders. That depoliticises the changes and everyone loves to hate the media.
Little also needs to move away from pledges of wanting to slash the prison population by 30% because all that sounds like is he is going to release prisoners back into society who should be in prison and that’s the exact bottleneck that National have got him caught inside which is open to attack whenever someone violently commits a crime while on remand.
I blogged about what the new Government needs to do on prison reform when they held their Justice summit…
1: DEFINING PUNISHMENT IN A LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE SOCIETY:
One of the things that I think was missed by this conference is a definition of what punishment in a liberal progressive democracy should actually look like. We need a collectively agreed definition as a society as to what punishment of those who have wronged us should actually be in practice because I believe most NZers have allowed their anger to cloud where righteous punishment should begin and where vengeful suffering should stop.
What we seem to miss is that it is the loss of liberty that is the punishment, not the draconian environment that simply induces suffering. In a liberal progressive democracy, we don’t relish the suffering of human misery upon those we judge worthy of such ranker, we punish a human by removing that which is most precious to them as humans – liberty.
Making people suffer within that loss of liberty simply warps the prisoner and it warps us. When we allow suffering to become a factor, we are allowing vengeance to eclipse justice.
2: RADICAL REDESIGNING OF THE INTERNAL PRISON ENVIRONMENT:
If we accept that the removal of liberty is the punishment, that in turn removes the need to make the environment a place of suffering.
The environment we want inside prisons is one where prisoners can heal and become functioning members of society again, unfortunately the violent and over crowded double bunked system we have now is the exact opposite of the one you need to be able to become rehabilitated within.
We need a radical redesign of the current prison environment. We need to end double bunking, we need more spaces inside the prison that are free from violence and we need rooms and resources that facilitate rehabilitation.
The grim joyless brutality of the current prison environment is simply a stick used to beat a human with. It can only create humans who are more brittle, less resilient and vastly more violent.
3: GIVING PRISONERS AGENCY TO SELF MODERATE BEHAVIOUR THROUGH EARLY PAROLE:
One of the great failures of policy was dumping the ability for Prisoners to self moderate their own behaviour and get out on parole after a third of their sentence. The far stricter tightening of parole means most will only ever get that opportunity after serving 2/3rds of their sentence. Setting people up for long lags without the possibility of getting out early sets a hopelessness in place that breeds contempt and refusal to engage in anything.
If prisoners could moderate their own behaviour by passing courses and rehabilitation programs inside prison that if completed could provide a pathway out of prison early, most prisoners would attempt that because people don’t actually like or want to be in prison.
What the current system is creating are prisoners who have served their full lag who have had no rehabilitation whatsoever. These aren’t released prisoners, they are ticking time bombs.
4: PRISONERS ON RELEASE:
The total lack of support once prisoners have been released is truly staggering.
Handed a $300 cheque, dropped into the frustration of WINZ bureaucracy and kicked out to accommodation not fit for dogs. The social alienation, lack of integration and almost zero support means many prisoners are set up to fail on release.
We need specific housing, integrated social services, counselling services, advice services, agencies who help prisoners guide through employment and targeted health and mental health providers.
To release damaged broken men who have served full sentences behind bars for 20 hours a day into the current environment where support is ruptured and missing is possibly the most ridiculous element of this entire comedy of horror.
5: FAR BETTER VICTIM SUPPORT:
As I stated before, we must while pushing for corrections reform also look at supporting those who have been hurt by criminals. Better compensation avenues, free counselling and paid time off work for the victims of crime are all musts because those damaged by crime need our assistance, compassion and help just as much as those who become trapped by their own cycle of violence. To ignore the suffering of those who have been burnt by crime while championing the rights of prisoners makes our empathy seem intellectually stunted.
6: THE TRULY BAD BUGGERS:
There will of course be amongst us men and women who commit acts with such malicious intent and joy that we can’t release them until we know they are no longer a physical threat to other members of society.
There will also be career criminals who have no interest in reform or rehabilitation and see hardened crime as a profession.
For them, we need long sentences but even while accepting that, we don’t need to make those human beings suffer in an environment that is needlessly cruel or dehumanising.
Little is losing the debate because there is a lack of clearly defining what punishment should look like in the modern world and that makes it impossible to aim at internal environments focused on rehabilitation while leaving him open to attacks by National.
The smug superiority of the Woke isn’t helping either.
We need to acknowledge that anger and fear have shaped our prison industrial complex and by reframing the issue as a media generated hysteria, Little could bypass National using that same media to try and spread more hysteria.
He can change things for the better, with coalition partners on board and without scaring the horses, but it will cost money.
It won’t be by opening the doors to the jails however. That will fail because the National Party, the media and unfortunately reality will see it backfire horribly.
One of the big problems at this time and one Little can address is the Department of Corrections. The term Corrections is an oxymoron and anyone who has taken an interest knows it. It should be called the Department of Containment.
Successive governments have underspent massively like cowards who know no one cares and can eek out easy savings but at such a big cost. Too few staff and far to many corners cut in the name of budget surpluses relying on four walls and oppressive physical and psychological violence to be a large part of the punishment. Or even worse, just the way it is.
It’s not just a moral and fiscal failure, it’s a corrupt inhuman disgrace tolerated by all politicians and many of society. Like the disgraceful and yet tolerated treatment of children dumped into institutions in the 20th century. Like the disgraceful treatment of the mentally ill of the same era.
To change this Little needs to spend big. He cannot turn the clock back on sentencing yet, that can come much later, but he can double or triple the budget to genuinely ensure that these many psychologically damaged humans are;
A. Are NOT subjected to more violence
B. Are safe
C. Receive unlimited psychological counselling as it is needed to overcome the ghosts that plague them so they can to do things like, for example, be able to undergo meaningful drug rehabilitation (that accompanies so many of their crimes), come to grips with the issues that led them to jail and help them move on positively.
D. To then have the best chance of leaving better than when they entered.
That is what he can achieve along with a painstaking academically backed narrative to the public. There would be a far greater chance of societal buy in and a far better chance to blunt the likes of Nationals Collins, Bennett etc, and the media’s lust for orgy of violence in jail.
But he has to want it, he has to be bold, strategic, smart and aggressive. Not the meek pathetic Andrew we have seen. If he really cares that is!
A politicians quick fix solution, which is what it looks like he wants to do, is not the answer!
There is already free counselling for victims but I don’t rate it much and there are cultural issues but no decent counsellors who deal with these issues or who are qualified to deal with them . How do I know, I have used the services. Victims support is good they do their job But they can only do so much.
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