The Chief Justice of New Zealand, Dame Sian Elias has issued her prescription for justice. There is one point in particular that I have issue with:
Punishing people may not rehabilitate them, but not punishing people at all will only create more victims.
Remember the victims Chief Justice? Some are indeed the people that become criminals because evil things are done to them. It follows therefore that if you increase the number of criminals on the streets, you will increase the number of victims.
Remember the victims Chief Justice? Some make choices that lead them to your court, and some, in spite of all the wrongs they suffer, you never see them. How will they feel when you let the people out early, only to commit crimes again?
Remember the victims Chief Justice? "We live in a climate where every mistake becomes a scandal" says Dame Sian. And so it should be. You cannot write off the murder of Karl Kuchenbecker as "a mistake". It's not going to help to escalate this to a "grave error".
No justice is no justice at all.
If the Chief Justice is out of ideas, let me advance a couple. What goes on inside Prison? Is it an environment of rehabilitation, penance, hard work and the opportunity to find redemption? Instead of a library of learning, do we instead allow criminals to spend their days playing Grand Theft Auto IV, complete with rape scenes on the Playstation? On big screen TV's?
Do we turn soft criminals into hardened criminals by not punishing crimes in prison? Why, apparently, have there been no prosecutions for prison rape? Why is it we read things like this: One in six inmates was aware of a sexual assault in jail in the past year, one in three had used drugs on the inside and half of inmates considered it 'easy' to get them. And find that the number of prosecutions for these offences approaches zero?
No justice is no justice at all.
When faced with the problem of rehabilitation, the Chief Justice suggests that the whole process of going before a court, being tried and sentenced is just a pointless waste of time, and it could have saved us more money for the cops to let them out shortly after being caught.
That kind of idea has a certain insanity to it that needs to be countered strongly.
This does not mean I'm against rehabilitation. I'm not against reviewing sentencing laws. I'm not against reviewing how we handle non-violent offences. These reviews seem to happen periodically anyway. In any event, they are all separate issues to this discussion. First we must acknowledge that the way forward is not to go backwards, simply because it is another direction.
For the sake of the victims, and future victims, we must remember that no justice is no justice at all.
See also: End of month clearance sale at Rimutaka prison
Hat tip to Contra Celsum, the links in the post lead you there.
[42] My last suggestion may be controversial. I do not know whether it is practical or politically acceptable, but I think it needs to be considered. We need to look at direct tools to manage the prison population if overcrowding is not to cause significant safety and human rights issues. Other countries use executive amnesties to send prisoners into the community early to prevent overcrowding. Such solutions will not please many. And I am not well placed to assess whether they are feasible. But the alternatives and the costs of overcrowding need to be weighed.This idea shows a weird disconnect from the point of justice. This idea follows from her argument that society is to blame for these people in the first place. So she wants to let them out into society. Give them amnesty. Cancel their sentences. Forgive their sins, even if they show no repentance. It's ludicrous.
Punishing people may not rehabilitate them, but not punishing people at all will only create more victims.
Remember the victims Chief Justice? Some are indeed the people that become criminals because evil things are done to them. It follows therefore that if you increase the number of criminals on the streets, you will increase the number of victims.
Remember the victims Chief Justice? Some make choices that lead them to your court, and some, in spite of all the wrongs they suffer, you never see them. How will they feel when you let the people out early, only to commit crimes again?
Remember the victims Chief Justice? "We live in a climate where every mistake becomes a scandal" says Dame Sian. And so it should be. You cannot write off the murder of Karl Kuchenbecker as "a mistake". It's not going to help to escalate this to a "grave error".
No justice is no justice at all.
If the Chief Justice is out of ideas, let me advance a couple. What goes on inside Prison? Is it an environment of rehabilitation, penance, hard work and the opportunity to find redemption? Instead of a library of learning, do we instead allow criminals to spend their days playing Grand Theft Auto IV, complete with rape scenes on the Playstation? On big screen TV's?
Do we turn soft criminals into hardened criminals by not punishing crimes in prison? Why, apparently, have there been no prosecutions for prison rape? Why is it we read things like this: One in six inmates was aware of a sexual assault in jail in the past year, one in three had used drugs on the inside and half of inmates considered it 'easy' to get them. And find that the number of prosecutions for these offences approaches zero?
No justice is no justice at all.
When faced with the problem of rehabilitation, the Chief Justice suggests that the whole process of going before a court, being tried and sentenced is just a pointless waste of time, and it could have saved us more money for the cops to let them out shortly after being caught.
That kind of idea has a certain insanity to it that needs to be countered strongly.
This does not mean I'm against rehabilitation. I'm not against reviewing sentencing laws. I'm not against reviewing how we handle non-violent offences. These reviews seem to happen periodically anyway. In any event, they are all separate issues to this discussion. First we must acknowledge that the way forward is not to go backwards, simply because it is another direction.
For the sake of the victims, and future victims, we must remember that no justice is no justice at all.
See also: End of month clearance sale at Rimutaka prison
Hat tip to Contra Celsum, the links in the post lead you there.