kowtow.. to have a barrow to push… added to my lexicon.

This is a tentative fairly ignorant opinion….. I don’t know about making prisoners work 40 hours a week…. but trying to train them at something useful for when they get out… that’s worth a shot now, isn’t it?

It would give them a chance to prove themselves as human beings while they are still inside. They could have the chance to build up a good track record. They can build up something to lose, so that there’s more chance they won’t *want* to then lose it.

Of course any kind of scheme works best with people who really do want to change for the better. Safety of course is an issue. For those who can keep ‘climbing the ladder’ without incident- who keep showing improvement and promise with no issues- who don’t cause problems and can effectively earn some basic trust- why not try to help them?

You start them off at intro level and then when they’ve proven themselves there… you’re onto the next level and so on. They’re on a good behaviour bond… pull a stunt and that’s it. Otherwise… yeah, work them up to outside apprenticeships, trade work, computer skills… get them out into a work environment somewhere….

Won’t work for a lot of them seeing as they might be thick as pig shit or just pricks.

National have been trying to repackage things that were being done before they came in as new initiatives. Of course, what they don’t mention is that there’s only so much work in prisons, and extending prisoner hours to 40 per week will likely result in less prisoners working overall.

Ensuring that they have a work ethic ingrained while they are imprisoned can only help these organisations succeed no matter what the work while inside involves.

As for motivating prisoners to work a simple explanation that work = eating, non-work = not eating will work wonders.

If the work is chipping weeds in the high country so as to avoid private sector competition, then there are no weed-chipping jobs in the private sector when they’re released, and they have no real skill to offer an employer.

If you set up manufacturing in prisons, it is economically viable only because labour costs are low and therefore again there would be no equivalent jobs in the private sector once they’re released.

Establish a business in a jail which is both intrinsically viable and provides real training and you start competing with the private sector, destroying not creating jobs on the “outside”.

It’s an insoluble problem, unless the government is at least as focused on job creation as it is on looking tough on law ‘n’ order and punishing beneficiaries for not finding jobs that simply don’t exist.

To work as intended (and the stated intent is to reduce reoffending by putting prisoners into work after release) the economy would need to first absorb virtually every other jobseeker because most employers will understandably favour applicants with no criminal record.

Which is not to say that work and training should not take place in prisons; they are valuable in their own right. But to place upon it an expectation of a 25% reduction in reoffending is profoundly unrealistic given the above.

So what will happen in a few year’s time when recidivism hasn’t fallen by anything close to that amount? Prisoners will go back to loafing about watching daytime TV? Or will it be used as an excuse to introduce a harsh regime of pointless hard labour for even the non-dangerous prisoners because they’re “not responding” to properly structured work programs?

A society is judged by how it treats it’s prisoners,it’s about rehabilitation,they have “rights”

N0ne of the above. For the most seruious and dangerous ,they lose their rights,go to prison to be kept away from the rest osof law abiding society. Don’t like it? Fine ,don’t commoi crime,simple really.

As to the rest,yes educate them (again) provide the opportunity for learning (again) But how many times?

And nasska…..”residenrt lunatic”? You can fuck off too.
Ithink a society will be judged by how it treats it’s unborn. They never get a say,an appeal, a taxpayer funded lawyer,a bill of rights,an ombudsman………

Firstly, we all had the opportunity to read your gems of wisdom at 10.34am. We also had the opportunity to ignore them.

Secondly, the relevance of NIMBY (not in my back yard) escapes me.

Thirdly, your efforts in ” challenging a Human Rights Commissioner and a Corrections Department Chief Executive” should not go unrewarded & to this end I hope that Kim Workman realises that nominating you for recognition in the next Honours List is the least he can do.

While I am happy to ignore the resident lunatic’s puerile proposal of a bullet do you genuinely consider that the current fad of rehabilitating prisoners has had any measurable success in reducing reoffending?

Because if it hasn’t we should get back to providing humane incarceration while protecting society from its dregs for as long as possible.

picking up trash from the side of the highway isnt going to create a work ethic. its just outright punishment.

if they are doing a semi normal job then they may get the point of working. self respect etc self esteem even.

dime

Are prisoners above doing the menial and tedious work that others do because they want to work?

The thing that puzzles me about his whole “work in prisons” issue is how they have resolved the problem of UN conventions that the Dear Leader signed us up to which preclude requiring prisoners to work – that was the reason cited when ACT raised this issue during my time. Anyone with accurate information as to how the Nats have got round that problem could perhaps share it.

Knowing the timid Key government, I very much doubt the answer is simply that they have given the one fingered solute to the UN.

” January 30th, 2013 at 10:34 am
The problem with working prisons (apart from Pare [aka Paremax]) has NEVER, EVER been the inmates.

They are bored shitless and, apart from the habitual druggies, would gladly work seven (7) days a week.

The problem has always been the prison officer union (s). Sort out the shift and meal problems, and working prisons will “work”. Leave them untouched and they will fail to achieve their potential.

But the main issue is what will they do for re-habitation and post-prison employment ? Provide the qualifying inmates with a meaningful qualification and post release employment opportunities (devoid of CP rubbish, except for a few) and working prisons will really work. ”

I referred to NIMBYS. In this context I mean the “$ 1 bullet” and “prison is for punishment” brigade.
Such comments (and similar) simply demonstrate a total lack of knowledge and a “NIMBY” attitude.

Some 110 years ago, Winston Spencer Churchill reminded the House of Commons that a nation could/would be judged on how it treated those it had imprisoned. Prison, Churchill asserted, was for rehabilitation. The deprivation of liberty was the punishment. He later made examples of several thugs running British military prisons, to remind them of that principle.

My own experience involved challenging a Human Rights Commissioner and a Corrections Department Chief Executive to approach such issues on the basis that they, or their spouses or children might be inmates. They got the message and, aided by support from the Ombudsman at the time, things changed for better, which is to say for the benefit of the whole community.

So, $1 bullet man et al : You, your wife, or your child?

If rehab is feasible then your proposal has merit. I’m still not sold on the effectiveness of the focus on prisons ‘turning people around’ as opposed to punishing wrongdoing as I’m ever aware of the old maxim about “garbage in – garbage out”.

However, I accept that what we are doing now is not working particularly well so maybe some innovation is overdue.

Would a work program have rehabilitated David Bain, or is he already one of the lucky ones who was on a work program?

By the time most criminals see the inside of a prison they have been through multiple Family Group Conferences & Youth Aid. They will have ignored fines, probation & community sentences until they finally commit an offence serious enough to warrant a custodial sentence. In other words they have made a choice to become career criminals……good luck with rehabilitating that lot.

Many will be “mad not bad” but because of the socialist meddling of Dear Leader & others the safe residential facilities they need have been closed……instead there is prison or the street.

The remainder will be largely made up of people who committed some serious crime often on the spur of the moment. Maybe they killed a cheating partner or shot someone in a hunting accident. They must be punished but rehabilitation is wasted effort for the simple reason that they are extremely unlikely to reoffend.

Therefore let’s drop the crap about rehabilitation & shift the focus onto making prisoners work to cover the expense of their keep & look after their families (& victims) outside. To this end I suggest ‘Jaffa” at 11.42 has come up with the best idea so far.

Re: 3)
I think it’d be great if most ex prisoners who were given $150k upon their release invested it wisely in a small business to provide a future income stream. But lets be realistic – numerous studies have shown that a huge number of inmates have serious substance abuse issues. Suddently giving $150k to a recovering drug addict is probably a good way of achieving the same result as kowtow’s approach but at a cost of $149,999 more…

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Your reoffending rates would cease to exist, however, as has been proved by history, when you lower the value to life to such a degree, overall crime, in particular crimes against the person, go sky high.

Do we really want that in this country?

Waikeria has a huge amount of farmland. For years that farm has provided, not just produce to the prison, reducing costs, but has had an income. What I am saying is pay those that work that farm a normal wage – thus providing all the positive examples of working etc to them, BUT at the same time take the cost of their board off them (reducing the overall cost of imprisonment), make them support their family’s and repay the victim/s. Thus reducing the cost of welfare, and providing the victim with at least some recognition for their suffering.

There is no reason why a factory could not be set up in the confines of many prisons. You may even find existing manufacturers prepared to do that.

Sure, we are always going to have the cost of running prisons, and safety will always have to be provided, at a cost to the country, but the positives achieved by making these guys do a decent days work, in the long run will lessen the overall expense.

I don’t agree with the US example. Their recidivism rate is through the roof. They have made cut backs, but prison offences have risen (those made by prisoners whilst incarcerated). The cost of maintaining their prison population is huge. Why do people insist on comparing our criminal institutions to the US. We don’t have the population, the economy or the legal structure to make us even closely comparable.