GUEST BLOG: Jackie Foster – AND WE WONDER WHY WE HAVE RECIDIVIST OFFENDING.
Working alongside troubled people is something I both enjoy and am very passionate about, but with this also comes challenges that leaves me wondering if the leaders of our country understand what is wrong and even if they really care about changing things for the better.
I have a client, who only two years ago, was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for high end offending.
I can hear people saying, “do the crime do the time” or “it should have been longer” and that may be a lot of people’s opinion but think about this for a minute.
The client I speak of was adopted as a baby from another very troubled country and brought up by a wonderful family who loved and supported him, as one would expect.
Diagnosed a little later in life with fetal alcohol syndrome, a real disease that was beyond my client’s control and has left him with challenges that are incomprehensible to most of us. Some of the symptoms he displays are difficulty with reasoning and problem solving, difficulty identifying consequences of choices he makes, poor judgement and this is just some of them.
Luckily his legal counsel could see where and how the system had failed him and appealed his sentence. Upon appeal the court agreed with her application, reducing the sentence to 3 years of which time served was given and he was released. Now the above scenario is concerning for two very important reasons.
My client has been failed by the system not once but twice but also the system has failed the country.
In sentencing Justice Woolford accepted that my client had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and fetal alcohol syndrome and that he also functioned well-below the typical capacity for someone of his age.
His IQ was assessed as 73, which is only slightly above the level of intellectual disability and furthermore said “Your impaired decision-making and impulsivity is not of your own making,” but still imposed a sentence that was never going to help this young man in any way.
Next comes the prison shambles.
Because this young man was classed as “a high[1]risk prisoner” he was not entitled to any programs for drug and or alcohol use, or that matter any rehabilitation programs full stop!
So here we have a young man taken out of a society that he never understood and put into a society that was threating and challenging him every day with no support or intervention being offered apart from a cell and a bed.
Roll on three years of being tormented and struggling to get through every day, he discovers that his appeal has been allowed and he will be released the very next day.
Released to what? Because he was time served, he was released with no assistance from probation, no WINZ support simply just with the clothes on his back and $350 in his back pocket.
No immediate family to turn to, as they work overseas, and just expected to find somewhere to live and get on with life. And we wonder why recidivist offending is so high.
My message to politicians is, start understanding the issues as they are.
The economy, unemployment and three waters are not the only issues that need dealing with. Take a look in your own back yard and start talking to your constituents about the real issues of the day and guess what if you do that, this country will be one hell of a lot better off.
Jackie Foster is the CEO of Social Justice Aotearoa
Great outline of the problems but no answers except to ask our useless politicians to take notice.
When the then Labour government under Helen Clark closed the mental hospitals, such as Kingseat and Carrington, she unloaded the care of the mentally vulnerable upon a society neither capable nor supported by suitable mental health state funded structures.
The answer is to build hospitals like Kingseat.
But this government (nor any future one) is going to spend the money to build secure mental health hospitals.
So as a society we have to accept that patients like you describe are going to be a problem. Unfortunately society simply does not care and would rather be blinkered to the mentally ill plight than force a government to build the infrastructure to care for them.
The story in the article will be replayed over the next 10, 20, 30, 100 years until either society breaks down or the hospitals are build.
Gerrit, I do wonder if closing down the mental health institutions was a very big mistake.
I am not sure if this man would have ended up in one. I am not sure if people with his profile were housed in the likes of KIngseat and Carrington, but I could be wrong.
De-institutionalization started well before Helen Clark was PM. It was international
Such true words. If Jackie’s previous blogs are anything to go by, she will have solutions, remembering when you are advocating or lobbying, I’m not sue what her group is, you keep your deck of cards close to you. I would suggest watching this space, because she seems to be quiet capable.
I agree with your thoughts Nathan.
Nathan’s comments are naive at best, arrogant and appalling at worst.
The system is broken.
We need a minimum of about 6 large facilities. We used to have 4 major ones back when times were simpler and the population was 3 Million.
The mental health facilities in hospitals are only suitable for acute patients and a fraction of those needing help. We have some care in the community houses but these are few and expensive as a minimum of 2 staff are needed for low risk individuals eg: down syndrome. And they are not suitable for schizophrenics and those with major behavioural issues.
On top of this, we have a government who doesnt accept that about 17% of the population are intellectually incapable of working. We have very few jobs that dont involve some measure of complexity today so those of 85 IQ or less are functionally unemployable. They cant drive a mower, work a cash register, handle money, use a computer etc. So by the time you add mental illness into the numbers, we have 20% of our population being left to rot and effectively persecuted by the State as there are no systems in place to deal with them.
I am all for tough on crime but we have to acknowledge that not all our criminals are actually criminals per se. They are the flotsam and jetson of our society who struggle to find any kind of life in our society.
Well said. Absolutely agree with everything you said. I hope your are standing for parliament next year.
Yes Fantail, the issue is not with this government but a Nact one. They want ” everyone” to work period. That is that sad truth even though, as you say 20 % of the population can’t work.
I remember ANZAC poppys being made by the IHC but it was taken away from them by a government that allowed business to outsource that contract purely based on cost. Those clients had meaning in their lives, that National government couldn’t care less.
You have a good imagination, Kilmarnock Enterprises used to make them after taking over from the RSA & they are now made in Christchurch again. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/10201610/Anzac-poppy-contract-returns-home
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/poppy-day-10-facts-you-should-know/6N25I4CPRZEVTPVF2O3N2632HM/
My recollection is that the IHC was behind the effort to close the hospitals for the intellectually impaired which lead to some of the former patients ending up in prison or suicide although those with the right connections get to run new care residences now so another way for private profit to come from what should be a public service. I am not going to pretend that the hospitals were perfect but they could have been fixed.