The ACT Party has hit out at an email sent to some frontline police urging them to “consider necessity of arrests” since one of New Zealand’s largest prisons is nearing capacity.
However Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis said it’s “not correct” that prisoners won’t be housed safely if they need to be in custody, adding there is still room for another 583 prisoners across prisons in New Zealand.
The Political Right are doing their nana over a plea by Corrections to Police that when considering arresting people for infractions that the Police appreciate how dangerous the current prison muster has already become.
As far as the Right are concerned, ‘this sends the wrong message’ – really?
What exact wrong message is it sending?
That rather than being grim arseholes meeting out punishment, they should balance whether adding another damaged individual to an already dangerously understaffed prison population is the smartest thing in the world to do?
Asking Police to use discretion because there are bigger threats to the entire system like collapsing in a massive prison riot is bad because we love prison riots?
As far as the Right are concerned, we should be building more prisons than state houses and if the prison is dangerously under funded – who gives a fuck, let’s hope they kill each other.
Charming.
We can’t arrest our way out of problems and watching the puerile politics of punishment play out with an almost sexual glee by the protagonists of tough on crime rhetoric is a reminder of how imbecilic our public debate on punishment has always been.
Damaging damaged men in cruel conditions only creates more damaged men.
The Right never accept that the loss of liberty is the punishment, because the Right want suffering as well.
The problem is I can barely tell the difference between a Sensible Sentencing Lynch Mob and a Woke social media Lynch mob these days.
Both want to replace justice with an unforgiving vengeance that punishes forever and ever and ever.
Our underfunded, corrupt, dangerous and under staffed counter productive Prison system should not have more balancing acts performed upon it.
It’s just a matter of time before another prison riot breaks out.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
Turns out there’s plenty of room. So who knows why the police are doing this. Juking crime stats in a more imaginative way seems likely!
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/04/corrections-deny-reports-overcrowded-prisons-are-influencing-policing-decisions.html
Martyn – ACT is right on this…serious crime must be investigated, and charges filed…We, NZ, need more prison space — especially, with more 501s arriving every week
Working at Burger King is now classified as a High-Risk Occupation! WTF!!
These Mellinial Cops don’t like confrontation so they never leave the police station because it’s too dangerous unless it’s for a photo shoot when they’re ‘wearing’ a AR-15!! FFS!
Shane Jones gets to the heart of the matter in his interview with AM today, if we need to lock up more p freaks stabbing citizens in servos and restaurants then we must, put them in a cage on a barge somewhere and forget about them if need be. They don’t deserve to live among us, and people like Ryan Bridge, with their woke objections to the word ‘feral’ and their insistence that these criminals have fluffy feelings need to wake up.
Yeah, it is much smarter to keep the criminals doing what they know best within the safety of the community.
It’s classic. Before the referendum on cannabis Pull the Benefit was running around saying something to effect of ‘ the police don’t have to follow the law and can exercise their discretion’ so we don’t need to change. Really? So why have the law then. Admittedly that was a National MP saying that not ACT but give it five minutes and National will be saying the same thing on the back of ACT on this occasion.
And the PM Jacinda Ardern could not state a preference on the referendum, cause that would be political. Maybe they want to be able to criminalize otherwise law abiding citizens?
FFS. Can’t you make up your own mind or do you need a politician to do it for you? Ardern was gutless on CGT but I don’t get blaming her for people being stupid in a referendum.
Tough one Martyn. All you say is true but it doesnt take into account where we have got to. Crime is soaring. Justice dept stats show this so regardless of media focus on it, it is the truth especially in some areas. Violent crime, retail crime, aggravated robbery.
As a country we are broke (not totally but facing a much larger debt and a looming recession). All of our major systems are falling apart and our 1960’s infrastructure is groaning at the seams. I never thought I’d say this but I’m at the point of thinking, well if we have to dump a bunch of containers in a field and build a big wall around them in somewhere like Pokeno, then lets just do it.
I really think that at this stage practicality has to win out over kindness. These things dont have to be long term solutions but cant we just do something now rather than nothing because its not ideal.
There is a new trend to ignore a murder and call it manslaughter and then if you are really lucky (based on your victimology) you can get a bit of time on an ankle bracelet as a punishment. So this is not the kind of practicality that we need but is the only answer to your suggestion that we do the gold plated thing.
We need first class education, sufficient public health care and an environment where people (individuals and business owners) are safe in their own spaces. And for pity’s sake can we please bring back some large mental health facilities while we are at it so that we stop all the ridiculousness that is ‘care in the community’.
Realistically, there is only so much kindness to go around and so much money.
Fantail. Agree 100%. The failure of government after government to provide a decent education system, has to be seen as a political malevolence worse than Roger Douglas’s excesses. The insanity of sex and gender ideology prematurely sexualising school children rather than them learning basic literacy and numeracy skills continues unimpeded, punctuated every now and then with superficial gestures like smaller classes, which aren’t necessarily relevant, except in the context of the dreadful shared learning spaces akin to battery farming chooks.
Every Wellington Education Department policy analyst should face a panel of citizens and explain themselves – which they couldn’t do. Ditto the police persons who decided that cops should sit in cars and observe women being physically bullied because those bullies happened to be the pc flavour of the month.
Of course we need adequate mental health facilities, but the basic sociopathic persona of most politicians precludes this, and vulnerable people living in intolerable mental pain often generated by the inadequate society in which they live, continue to be sacrificed on the dirty altar of politics.
The breakdown of the society in which we’re living should not be attributed to its victims, but it is. Eradicating poverty with its concomitant crippling effects would be a sensible sort of place to start, and isn’t an unreasonable ask.
Fantail Do you know what government decided to close down the mental health facilities like Cherry Farm, and Sunnyside, and turf people out into the mythological caring community, aka immigrant landlords running squalid boarding houses ? I was living overseas when some of these damaging things were done, and I don’t know. I do know though, that the psychiatrist hospitals did provide a sheltered environment for people who wanted and needed them, and that a retrospective narrative vilifying the lot of them is nonsense.
I’ve constantly defended our young guys because, unlike Bill the privileged English, I think they’re great, most of them are ok. At the same time I know some are twisted bad mindless bastards, and containers in a field might be a good option, or pop then on an isolated island, with regular food drops and packets of seeds.
Henuki, on you go then LOCK THEM ALL UP. eh capitalism, shall we care our humanity, outside profit exploit, shall we question.
“These days we’re driving round in Skodas looking for brown people like you who might be thieves, rapists, kidnappers, murderers, drug dealers or any of your descendants or any of your incarnations, because you are scum.
We’re gonna LOCK YOU UP!”
There is no thought of the victim in this senario. They deserve to see some concequences to the hurt they have received.
Prisons ,schools ,hospitals all under resourced by this government. There was a new prison planned in 2017 when Labour came to power. It was stopped as they said crime will fall under their watch .Another lie .
Exactly Trevor! We look forward to private prisons, charter schools and the privatisation of health by stealth under NACT. Oh, and the further sale of public assets that are left to sell. There you go, problem solved!
My friends father was severely bashed by his mongrel mob associate next door neighbour, over a trivial neighbourly dispute, and now has lifelong injuries-he’ no longer the same person. The guy got off, he managed to hire a top notch lawer and despite facing 7 years imprisonment for wounding with intent to cause gbh (I think), he didn’t serve any time. He got a slap on the wrist with some new community service scheme. Our justice system is fucked.
Breath Engel.
Bomber, lets shoot, the world .
Comments are closed.