National’s appallingly costed Prison Empire and what it will really do

‘Ineffective, expensive, inequitable’ – expert on Nats’ crime policy

An expert has slammed National’s proposed law and order reforms, saying the party’s policy is “retrograde”.

At a party conference over the weekend, National said wanted to limit judge discretion in sentencing, curb the use of cultural reports, and offer rehabilitation to remand prisoners that are awaiting sentencing.

AUT law dean and parole board member Khylee Quince told Breakfast: “There was not a lot of inspiring policy proposed in this suite of reforms, nothing new here really. I’d sum it up by saying ‘ineffective, expensive and inequitable’.”

It comes after data released in March showed retail crime had increased by 39% over the year prior.

But National’s announcement “is fear-mongering”, Quince said.

“They’ve cherry-picked certain categories of crime there, [and] the media chooses to highlight certain types of crime at any given time.

The National Party Conference was held over the weekend where Chris Luxon launched a whole range of kneejerk law and order policies that were ill thought out and stupid.

I wrote that within a week National would have walked back all this nonsense once journalists started asking actual questions of the policy to strip Judges of discretion, impose harsher sentences and somehow force prisoners on remand to complete rehabilitation programs.

Hilariously Chris was walking things back within 24 hours!

Note how empty the National Party Conference actually was to remind yourself National doesn’t have wide enough support to fill the ground floor..

…National claim the soft-on-crime-cuddle-a-crim Labour Party are fecklessly letting out 4000 prisoners while the crime rate soars. What they don’t understand is Labour lowered the prison population using National Party Prison policy that allowed for non violent offenders to apply for home detention while in prison. The only difference between National’s use of their policy and Labour’s is that Labour provided prisoners with help filling out the forms because most prisoners are illiterate.

If National don’t understand the current prison policy, how can they provide solutions?

National claimed they would get prisoners on remand to complete rehabilitation programs, but you can’t use any rehabilitation programs unless you accept your guilt. Why would prisoners on remand waiting trial admit guilt?

Do National actually know what they are talking about?

We had this surreal situation over the weekend where Journalists bombarded National for costing of this mass incarceration policy and they had no numbers. Asked what the cost of a NZer in prison per annum was, Paul Goldsmith and Chris Luxon said “$100,000,” when the actual cost is $193 000″.

How can a Party push extreme uncosted policy like this and pretend to be a Government in waiting?

My fear is that ACT and National can’t actually tell the difference between the Mongrel Mob, Headhunters, Hells Angels, Black Power or Comancheros and that’s an enormous problem because the gangs who flooded Opotiki to mourn the murder of their President and who freaked middle NZ out so much last week, are not the same as the sophisticated Cartel linked gangs who are making enormous profit from NZs meth trade.

How will banning gang patches prevent the 501 syndicates from importing south american cartel meth?

We ask Judges to be independent and use mercy in their decision making, National wants to rob Judges of that discretion and force them to impose heavy sentences even if there are mitigating circumstances.

Do National want justice or a lynch mob?

Those derided ‘cultural reports’ give Judges insight into the criminal to see ion there is anything redeemable here rather than the simply brutality off imprisonment!

WE. WANT. JUDGES. TO. HAVE. THIS. INSIGHT!!!!!!!

National don’t actually understand the Prison Empire they built when last in power, their solutions to remove discretion from Judges, impose harsher sentences while pretending rehabilitation programs (that can never and will never work in remand) are the silver bullets.

This isn’t a law and order debate, this is a right wing wet dream fantasy that has little basis in reality. None of the ‘solutions’ National are offering will do the things they say they are attempting to solve!

If anything, it will cause an explosion in the prison population which will ultimately lead to a full blown prison riot as the underfunded, over crowded, violent jail population (minus any of the joke rehabilitation National are promising) will event horizon into a black hole of misery and suffering!!!

So why is our crime rate soaring?

Well, we have to acknowledge the unprecedented importation of 501s bringing a culture of criminal violence far in excess of what was generated by our domestic gangs. Labour can’t be blamed for that!

We also have to acknowledge that dairy crime was far higher in 2016 when National were last in power than they are now!

What is generating the majority of the current crime wave however is the same thing that is generating crime waves throughout the post-covid Western World.

The same is happening in Australia,  UK, Canada and America.

Post covid societal and economic stresses causing crime waves at the same time there is 12.1% food inflation and a cost of living crisis while surviving the ongoing economic, cultural and social impacts of climate crisis storms and geopolitical shockwaves is as predictable as National having to walk something back 24 hours after Luxon says it!

Of course crime is exploding everywhere because the covid sacrifice was felt unevenly across our unequal society, pretending building more uncosted fucking prisons is a solution to all of that is sophistry at its most intellectually bankrupt.

 

 

 

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