Is it time to burn WINZ and Probations down to the ground and can CYFs & Corrections be saved?

As believers of the power for good a well funded state sector can create, we on the Left are big supporters of the state, so what do we do when we realise that some functions of state are not only broken and deformed, they are actually creating counter productive damage that demands a radical amputation and regrowth?

Currently there are two departments I consider utterly broken and the only response is political napalm and three departments that require radical reform. The Left’s focus must be on the service of care and support citizens are receiving from these state departments, not the perk benefits of beurocrats.

WINZ

The horror stories of the gleeful malevolence that so many front line WINZ staff seem to display towards beneficiaries cements my impression that these people are so burnt out and hateful of those they are supposed to care about that the entire department is simply too corrupt to keep. The terrible sadism some of these staff have exhibited were in terrible highlight by AAAP when they held their beneficiary clinic last month. That almost 1000 desperate people turned up begging for help to deal with a department who is purposely making welfare complex and difficult to gain shows what a fail,sure WINZ has become.

60% of those on sole parent welfare or job seeker benefits owe WINZ money from overpayments to penalties incurred by WINZ voodoo math relationship criteria. These people are locked into a cycle of poverty debt they can never break out from under.

There is a team in WINZ who trawl social media feeds to see if beneficiaries are in relationships – that’s not a bloody functioning democratic welfare state, that’s the fucking Stasi!

One staff member ‘down south’ is a former Repo agent. That’s right, the frontline staff at WINZ are repo agents, that’s not the characteristics you want for this job!

WINZ dehumanises those it is supposed to  help and those working for it. We need to politically burn this cancer to the ground and replace it with a Universal Basic Income. Beneficiaries could then avoid the humiliation and stress and we stop paying for sadists to enjoy cutting the poor off welfare.

 

PROBATIONS

Talk to any group trying to help prisoners reintegrate into society and they’ll tell you it is probations who are the major problem. Because so many of our men and women are now serving longer sentences with zero rehabilitation, Probations has taken up the cudgel to bash these prisoners and make their conditions so strict and cut off from society that they breach.

Parole Boards may release a prisoner, but then Probation decides to go over the top of them and install their own standards which make a breach guaranteed. That’s more prisoners back inside, more prisoners unable to find work, more prisoners unable to find suitable accommodation in the outside world and more prisoners living homeless.

Crusading Probation Officers who consider themselves vigilantes handing out justice are the biggest problem facing prisoners on release. Rather than creating reasons to send people back to prison, Probations should be helping Prisoners find places to live, help them access work, help them access education, help them access training, help them access medical care and welfare all the while keeping a firm line on conditions.

There is no carrot used by this department, just a  bloody great big stick. Staff attitudes towards those they are supposed to be serving are only slightly less offensive than WINZ staff.

 

CORRECTIONS

The madness of allowing private corporations to run prisons for profit is only part of our problem in Corrections. Too much focus is on looking prisoners up rather than what do we do now they are locked up. The lack of educational advancement, the lack of a safe environment, the lack of medical care, mental health care and addiction treatments have created an underfunded public service who can barely look after the numbers they have let alone attempt to heal these people.

Our focus on punishment over rehabilitation is driven by the media, the Sensible Sentencing Lynch Mob and get tough on crime politicians who manipulate middle class fears to get harsher and harsher sentences. That hate and fear fest needs to be challenged and a radical rethink of the entire purpose of prisons re-examined. The punishment is the loss of liberty, it doesn’t need to be any more severe than that, rehabilitation and healing is what is required inside a prison, not suffering.

We currently have a system that is producing people more damaged than when they went in.

 

CYFS

This abomination of a department has to be saved somehow. The frontline staff are incredible, they are a real national treasure, but their inability to provide any of the downstream resources desperately required by those children they attempt to move from harm is pitiful. The current plan to outsource and intervene earlier could be disastrous to Maori and Pacific Island families – but it’s a department that could be fixed easily by far more downstream resourcing.

When children in state care have the same risk of being abused as in the homes they are being abused in, that is a desperate signal that things have gone terribly wrong.

 

 HOUSING NZ

The fear that permeates through out the world of state housing tenants is obvious. The powerlessness and fear of being kicked out if they complain means there is no strong voice able to counter the stereotypes driven by the media that they are all P smoking hoodlums. We need a massive new state housing build, a refit and state houses for life. The current privatisation agenda is going to throw people out onto the streets.