weizguy:

Accept all that you say. On reflection I think we’re both right. To reform State-run prisons there’d need to be a wholesale clean-out of most superintendents and probably a level or two below. How would I choose? Well, socialist as this may sound, I’d poll all the lower-ranking officers who work, or had ever worked, under those administrators, and even ask the prisoners (though not let them decide, obviously). Good officers and the most prisoners want the same things, basically: a secure environment but one which is adaptable enough to, as Lee C terms it “fill the holes” in prisoners’ backgrounds – whether that’s a need for discipline, to read and write, to get into the habit of getting up and going to work…

But I also take your point that leadership needs to come from above, and neither Tolley nor her immediate predecessor seem willing to tackle it. Partly, I think, it’s because prison officers have one of the strongest unions (along with police officers and lawyers) and one of the most strident (along with teachers) and it’s all too much trouble – after all there’s very few votes in better run prisons. Thing is, there can be, if you’re the government that can point to a fall off in reoffending. But it’s a controversial policy for a long-term pay-off and no politicians these days have the guts.

David Garrett:

I’m glad you’re talking to former inmates. I’ll admit I’m surprised that the young woman with nwhom you’re corresponding supports three strikes… has she said why? Did she feel she needed the guarantee of her next offence being a strike to stop her offending? Because interestingly one of the people I’m working with is a young woman who committed two ag robs (second while on bail for the first). In her case she had an opiate addiction but had committed no crimes for 4 years, managing on subutex (similar to morphine). Then a quack took her off the opiate substitutes and put herr on benzodiazepines which, if taken in high doses, induce what’s called “the Rambo effect”. Withdrawing from opiates and with her system full of benzos, she went on a crime spree.

As soon as she was caught and imprisoned she began to straighten out – not that she was helped by the appallingly inadequate medical care offered in jails, the hallmark of which is delays for treatment that make public hospitals look like first class private clinics. She has been released for two years now and is determined never to return, not even for a day. She is equally asd adamant as your corrspondent that she doesn’t need a mandatory sentence hanging over her head to keep her on the straight and narrow,.

mikemikemikemike:

Why is it only rehab if someone is making money out of it?

Good point. I know some regular contributors here genuinely believe any prison ought to be rehabilitative, but I wonder if a few of the commenters who engage less with these issues would be as supportive of such initiatives if they were in fact occurring in State prisons?

it’s prison, it is no place for children, people are there for punishment and rehabilitation and allowing children there only serves to normalize it as a way of life.

I assure you there is nothing normal about visiting a loved one in prison. You’re surrounded by razor wire, escorted by guards, sit separated from the person you’re seeing (either by distance or sometimes by plate glass, talking to them by phone). If you’re lucky you get a hug at the start and end. Everyone is stressed, many are crying. In Australia, if you look up when you enter or leave you’ll see guards with rifles and you’ll know that if there’s ever a riot or an escape attempt, your loved one may end up shot – even if they’re just innocently caught in the melee. Not that that’s likely, but when you’re worried for the welfare of the person you’re visiting, such things play on your mind…

Scroll up and you’ll see there’s lots of research that says visiting by family has positrive outcomes for children and for the chances of the prisoner reoffending. What we should be doing is trying to make it more normal, which is what Tolley is suggesting in this case. But the point you make first is right – she needs to be courageous and insist her department follow suit because rehabilitation shouldn’t only occur if someone is making money from it.

Likewise, if the government was in charge and the inmates are being tortured, mistreated, this is unacceptable. If Serco is found to be in charge while it is happening then the scum should not have gotten into trouble and they bloody well deserved it. (Assuming it is found out because you can bet if there is money on the line you can bet they will be very careful about ensuring it is never reported on)

The hypocrisy in this blog is mind-boggling!

IMHO – it’s prison, it is no place for children, people are there for punishment and rehabilitation and allowing children there only serves to normalize it as a way of life.

Rex: That story about not being able to use your communications skills to teach others is appalling…and I have little difficulty accepting everything you say about how the institutions are run. but…if you scan right back up the comments you will see me refer to a woman I am corresponding with who got NCEA level 2 in jail (she left school at 14 semi literate), got cleaned up from drugs, and almost two years after getting out is doing very well. She thinks jail works, is determined not to go back, and thinks three strikes is a great idea (she herself was in for an agg robb committed to support her drug habit)…so what do you make of that? (And NO, I am not sleeping with her!)

Prisons would better serve us as a society if they were fundamentally viewed as rehabilitative, dedicated to filling holes in inmates’ education and socialisation, providing skills and education so that reoffending might be reduced because an ex-con has a fighting chance of seeking and getting employment.

If we see these institutions as solely state-sanctioned agents of retribution, how can we e anything but suprised when some crims see it as their career duty to reoffend? I know there are some bad people in there. But bottom line is, for many of the 18 – 24 year old men who are likely to find themselves in jail, there but for the grace of go go you or I.

Institutionalising and entrenching their criminality by maintianing such environments to serve the ‘bloodlust’ of some is pointless and expensive, couter productive and self-defeating.

Thanks to those who’ve contributed to this discussion.

What I object to is the claim that private prisons are the only way to change this. Instead of making structural and cultural changes that would promote innovation, the Department (following direction from the government) has moved further away from innovation and appears to be focusing entirely on basic management.

A Minister who wanted to see this type of improvement has the levers to implement change. Instead, this govt focused on privatisation and administration.

“Jailbait”? Considering that’s generally a term applied to promiscuous teenage girls, the mind boggles!

My service was instructive in that, I saw that most of those who were incarcerated had no real desire to change.
No remorse, no guilt, just an insiders vs outsiders mentality.

Yes, me too. I befriended people who were otherwise pretty much my equals – i.e. middle class, university educated, well spoken, non-violent – but all they could talk about was how they were looking forward to getting their next “8 ball” (speed, or as NZers would call it, P) on release and how great their last one was. They’re the people I’d look at and ask “WTF were /are you thinking?”

But there was no incentive in that maximum security facility to change. Serco incentivises positive change and people respond. It’s basic psychology, a mix of carrot and stick, and of course it works. The state run jails are harsh, but not in the way hardliners would like. They are just vast holding pens of frustrated people with nothing to do except follow rules, many of them pointless and a fair number counter-productive.

For instance despite having a post-graduate qualification in communications I wasn’t allowed to teach other inmates to read or write during “education”. That was “against the rules” the screws (who’d both clearly dropped out of high school with a bad attitude) told me. Instead, gorwn men sat without any supervision, teaching or encouragement, in front of old PCs running programs designed for 4 and 5 year olds. So if they spelled “cat” right, a fluffy kitten would gambol across the screen. Like that’s going to get someone who fancies themselves a ‘hard man’ to learn reading and writing!

By the time I was released I had an “insiders vs outsiders” mentality, a severe case of PTSD, and a determination to do what I could to give the inmates who wanted a chance, the chance to have one. I’ve managed to moderate the first two, but the last burns strongly as ever.

@weizguy:

If you stop the Department of Corrections from being innovative…

I’ll accept that my comments here may not apply to NZ but I suspect very strongly they do, based on what colleagues working in NZ prisons have told me, what I’ve read in the literature, and my common sense telling me NZ can’t be the only Western, State-run correctional system that’s different.

The people running (not working in… there’s an amazing number of good people at the coalface, they just don’t last working for fools) do not want change. They are career public servants who, like many of their peers in other departments, have no concept of what public service means and preside over their personal fiefdoms with jealousy, immediately rejecting any notion that they should change lest it means they learn something or have to move.

Most are prison officers who’ve survived in the system by doing nothing beyond their job description – opening and closing doors and escorting prisoners. In their worldview prisoners are there neither for punishment or rehabilitation but to shut up, do nothing, learn nothing and help them meet their targets.

I have tried being nice, I have tried taking them to court, but they will look you in the eye and say black is white if it means they won’t have to change a single thing.

Unpcnz cougar that is exactly right. Its what the US have done. In New York they started taking petty crime seriously and now you can walk round Harlem apperently, whereas I remember watching a doco in the 70s where the NY police admitted they were no better than a “force of occupation” in the ghettos.

clinton also introduced welfare reforms in the 90s so that in most states everyone know that if you want a baby your going to have to wait tables to pay for it.

Callifornia went the other way and took serious crime seriously with long senteces and three strikes.

Consequently US crime has fallen well below that in NZ in many states.

But its a mighty fine idea to pay good parents to breed. I hadnt thought of that, and perhaps combine that with paying the blameless babes not to breed.

I can just imagine Minister Tolley’s response if the Department had suggested similar approaches. Why is it that proponents of privatisation never want to see how it works with a level playing field?

If Tolley goes down the road of making prisons ‘worthwhile’ as she seems to be doing, then there is no reason why they can’t be used as a first, second or third resort INSTEAD of a last resort.

Prisons wouldn’t then be so bad on individuals as under the right emprisonment conditions it is far better to jail someone at the start of a ‘likely and probable’ crimminal career than after more serious crimes[low security has a better chance at 'reforming' than maximum security].

However, be warned, using them as a first resort means you may end up with Australians!

In this context, substitute the word “themes”, because a theme as reflected in a film or book isn’t a meme unless it makes the jump to current pop culture.

A meme is more like something that spreads throughout a culture or subculture till everyone knows what it means / references / says it. Like playground sayings when we were growing up, but now spead via the internets. Not really a belief system.

@unpcnzcougar

As someone who’s generally portrayed as being, in that delightful turn of phrase, a “softcock” on criminal justice issues it might surprise you to know I agree with you. Not to the extent of approving of lashes, but the principle of sharp, harsh punishments for minor crimes. Google “Broken Windows theory” for more, as I grow too tired to maintain coherence for much longer…