The New Zealand Parole Board has been receiving accolades from far and wide for the introduction of a new parole screening program. Early indications is that their advanced psychological profiling is extremely accurate, with a 100% success rating to date, uncovering a homicidal maniac with violent tendencies just days before his planned release.
A spokesperson from the Corrections Department explains:
"We release the prisoner into a room with a cute cat, a puppy or a hamster. Over the next few days we monitor him closely. If he beats the small animal to death or tortures it we note that on his evaluation form, and try an animal with bigger eyes or a twitchier nose and whiskers. We leave flavorful morsels for him to feed the critter with, thus establishing an inseparable bond based on trust and love.
Following this, we place additional equipment in the room: a catnip toy; piece of cheese, a small chewy ball perhaps and an axe or hammer.
Another prisoner is subsequently placed in the same environment and begins to make unusual facial expressions at the animal. He may suggest unlikely sexual connections between the subject and the animal, especially if the subject is a rapist. He may wave his arms in a threatening manner in the general direction of the cuddly pet.
At this point the prisoner due for parole will either engage in a productive dialog demonstrating conflict resolution skills and finding a mutually satisfactory solution to ensuring the ongoing welfare of his adopted animal, or he will fly into an uncontrollable rage and stab the prisoner repeatedly unless otherwise prevented.
Accordingly, we send a third prisoner in the room with the objective of preserving the victims life. We have practiced this manoeuvre repeatedly and are pleased to say the third prisoner often enters the room within 5 minutes of the initiation of the attack. I believe the threat of a taser blast helps in this regard.
Results have been excellent. On our first trial we uncovered a homicidal maniac we were about to release back into the community. Although he had assured us he was fully reformed, we now suspect he may have fibbed. He is being held back and this will obviously have some impact on his parole eligibility, although what impact, is too early to say at this time."
Related Link: Prisoners stabs cellmate over scared cat
Update: The actual case that sparked this post may not be an issue of parole, but simply a long term prisoner finally reaching the end of their sentence. But what a great idea, eh? (And now he has more than likely stuffed up his chances. You think that is stupid?)
A spokesperson from the Corrections Department explains:
"We release the prisoner into a room with a cute cat, a puppy or a hamster. Over the next few days we monitor him closely. If he beats the small animal to death or tortures it we note that on his evaluation form, and try an animal with bigger eyes or a twitchier nose and whiskers. We leave flavorful morsels for him to feed the critter with, thus establishing an inseparable bond based on trust and love.
Following this, we place additional equipment in the room: a catnip toy; piece of cheese, a small chewy ball perhaps and an axe or hammer.
Another prisoner is subsequently placed in the same environment and begins to make unusual facial expressions at the animal. He may suggest unlikely sexual connections between the subject and the animal, especially if the subject is a rapist. He may wave his arms in a threatening manner in the general direction of the cuddly pet.
At this point the prisoner due for parole will either engage in a productive dialog demonstrating conflict resolution skills and finding a mutually satisfactory solution to ensuring the ongoing welfare of his adopted animal, or he will fly into an uncontrollable rage and stab the prisoner repeatedly unless otherwise prevented.
Accordingly, we send a third prisoner in the room with the objective of preserving the victims life. We have practiced this manoeuvre repeatedly and are pleased to say the third prisoner often enters the room within 5 minutes of the initiation of the attack. I believe the threat of a taser blast helps in this regard.
Results have been excellent. On our first trial we uncovered a homicidal maniac we were about to release back into the community. Although he had assured us he was fully reformed, we now suspect he may have fibbed. He is being held back and this will obviously have some impact on his parole eligibility, although what impact, is too early to say at this time."
Related Link: Prisoners stabs cellmate over scared cat
Update: The actual case that sparked this post may not be an issue of parole, but simply a long term prisoner finally reaching the end of their sentence. But what a great idea, eh? (And now he has more than likely stuffed up his chances. You think that is stupid?)
I'm sure the parole system has many faults, but still the vast majority of crimes are committed by persons not on parole. It's kinda like a basket with a few rotten apples - everyone blames the basket as a convenient scapegoat.
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BTW Zen - what with u being an IT expert - what's with all the empty trackbacks on blog posts these days? This used to be regarded as a self-promoting hanging offense in my early days of blogging ;-)
Hi Ruth.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the 'vast majority of crimes' are committed by people with a previous criminal history?
but still the vast majority of crimes are committed by persons not on parole
The interesting statistic would be to look at the total number of people on parole, and see what proportion of them re-offend before they would have reached the full sentence.
I agree the parole system is not perfect, although this particular case may not be a parole issue - the way I read it the man had reached the end of his sentence and was due for release.
We have the cat and the prisoner with an unfortunate facial tic(?) to thank for saving some hapless member of the public :-)
RE the weird link problem. I've noticed it on a few sites. Several blogger functions have gone screwy and I haven't had time to track it down. I suspect the new "latest post" widget some blogs use have created an unfortunate side effect. I'll look into this soon and try to resolve all local issues (I hope).
Happy New Year!
Great piece of writing.
ReplyDeleteYou might enjoy these ones on tagging.
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