Forms of government for New Zealand

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#1028520 21-Apr-2014 11:26

Fred99: The system (prison) doesn't seem to work very well in NZ (deterrent to crime, and rehabilitation).
NZ has a relatively high rate of incarceration - and a poor performance with recidivism.

increase participation = decrease incarceration

sir1963

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#1028531 21-Apr-2014 11:46

Sidestep:
Fred99: The system (prison) doesn't seem to work very well in NZ (deterrent to crime, and rehabilitation).
NZ has a relatively high rate of incarceration - and a poor performance with recidivism.

increase participation = decrease incarceration

Must be why the wealthy get imprisoned so little compared to poor people for the same crime.

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#1028569 21-Apr-2014 12:56

sir1963:

Must be why the wealthy get imprisoned so little compared to poor people for the same crime.

Ahhh no.. that's because as a society we assign Social Value – Status - to wealth. And beauty.

Social cohesion's a kind of vague concept, a measure of the bonds linking us to one another and to the society as a whole.

If you're rich and/or beautiful in our society it's easy to have a strong social identity. Fit in. Being well educated, coming from a certain social class, or group, even ethnicity helps..
Here on geekzone, knowing geeky stuff helps. If you're a high status person it's more likely the court will be lenient on you, compared with a social outcast convicted of the same crime.

And whether you call it Social Value, Social Capital, Social Credit or “Street Cred” - if your social status increases due to an involvement in politics, and society in general - rather than by robbing old ladies at the supermarket and having a bulldog tattooed on your forehead, I reckon that's a good thing.

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#1028631 21-Apr-2014 17:14

Sidestep:
Fred99: The system (prison) doesn't seem to work very well in NZ (deterrent to crime, and rehabilitation).
NZ has a relatively high rate of incarceration - and a poor performance with recidivism.

increase participation = decrease incarceration

With respect , thats rubbish. Explain all the highly paid in prison. Explain why offenders when released who have the vote thus able to participate reoffend. Offending or reoffending is not compulsory, it is choice.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

Fred99

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#1028635 21-Apr-2014 17:27

KiwiNZ:
Fred99: The system (prison) doesn't seem to work very well in NZ (deterrent to crime, and rehabilitation).
NZ has a relatively high rate of incarceration - and a poor performance with recidivism.

Restorative justice will always have varying levels of success, it is still better than retributive justice. But again the choice to reoffend is a conscientious choice. Loss voting an outcome of that choice.

You are talking about "ideology" not reality - as despite apparent efforts made, the high recidivism rates (>70% in NZ?) seem to show that "rehabilitation" is mainly a myth.
So not only do we have high prison rates, but the apparent "willingness" of ex-prisoners to re-offend seems to show that it's not acting as a deterrent (nor serving the function of keeping the public safe). It is a retributive system - many people are happy with that, and in fact want it more retributive.

Fred99

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#1028637 21-Apr-2014 17:31

KiwiNZ:
Sidestep:
Fred99: The system (prison) doesn't seem to work very well in NZ (deterrent to crime, and rehabilitation).
NZ has a relatively high rate of incarceration - and a poor performance with recidivism.

increase participation = decrease incarceration

With respect , thats rubbish. Explain all the highly paid in prison. Explain why offenders when released who have the vote thus able to participate reoffend. Offending or reoffending is not compulsory, it is choice.

It's choice in the context of the position that the ex-prisoner finds himself in. Criminality is accepted as normal behaviour in some groups. It's also very very hard for ex-prisoners to find meaningful work.

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sir1963

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#1028714 21-Apr-2014 20:57

Fred99:
KiwiNZ:
Fred99: The system (prison) doesn't seem to work very well in NZ (deterrent to crime, and rehabilitation).
NZ has a relatively high rate of incarceration - and a poor performance with recidivism.

Restorative justice will always have varying levels of success, it is still better than retributive justice. But again the choice to reoffend is a conscientious choice. Loss voting an outcome of that choice.

You are talking about "ideology" not reality - as despite apparent efforts made, the high recidivism rates (>70% in NZ?) seem to show that "rehabilitation" is mainly a myth.
So not only do we have high prison rates, but the apparent "willingness" of ex-prisoners to re-offend seems to show that it's not acting as a deterrent (nor serving the function of keeping the public safe). It is a retributive system - many people are happy with that, and in fact want it more retributive.

But we don't rehabilitate in NZ, our prisons are punitive. Ww don't have any rights to complaint then when "rehabilitation" fails.

We also live in a society that seems to be more than happy to spend $80,000 plus a year per prisoner but begrudge them benefits which costs a lot less.

Society is keen to punish "Benefit abusers", last year benefit fraud cost about $100 Million

Corporate tax fraud and high income tax fraud however cost about $15 BILLION , yet little is done about this.

We put poor people in prison for theft of hundreds of dollars, yet fraud by accountants, lawyers, business executives who steal thousands of times that are not punished more harshly , why not ?

Surely the idea of prison is a deterrent , the educated, the wealthy have less reason to commit crime, yet they are not deterred.

Sidestep

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#1028973 22-Apr-2014 09:19

KiwiNZ:
Sidestep:
Fred99: The system (prison) doesn't seem to work very well in NZ (deterrent to crime, and rehabilitation).
NZ has a relatively high rate of incarceration - and a poor performance with recidivism.

increase participation = decrease incarceration

With respect , thats rubbish. Explain all the highly paid in prison. Explain why offenders when released who have the vote thus able to participate reoffend. Offending or reoffending is not compulsory, it is choice.

NZ prisons aren't full of highly paid people.. The population of our prisons is overwhelmingly poor, brown, and recidivist.

There's a subset of the population alientated from societal values, more likely to be involved in crime, and punished with prison.. as Fred99 says where “criminality is accepted as normal behaviour” - “outlaws”- who Geektastic would “kill on sight”

I'm certainly not suggesting their not Voting's the cause. It's at best a symptom of their lack of integration. Participation = Meaningful work, alternatives to re-engaging in crime... there's so much needed.

For some of them it's a lost cause.
They'll spend a lot of their lives in prison - as sir1963 points out – on our dime.
What a waste.

But there's another generation following, we're viewing this though the lens of a debate on Governance, and there's a correlation between peoples active participation in society - including voting, education, and more – and involvement in crime.

Last night I saw the ACT party promoting their “3 strikes” law. That's always an instant crowd pleaser. Everyone likes to see the Bad Guys punished.

But put the fence at the top of the cliff, and society as a whole would benefit.

raytaylor

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#1028978 22-Apr-2014 09:25

charsleysa: Currently New Zealand has a Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy as our form of government.

I would like to hear your thoughts about whether we should keep the current form of government or seek a new form of government.

Dictatorship under one ruler: Our benevolent leader Ray

First thing I would do once in power, is eliminate all squares. Nothing good ever happens to dictators in squares.

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#1028980 22-Apr-2014 09:33

The whole effectiveness of prisons and laws is a complete side track and getting off topic. My argument is simply that the ability to vote is fundamental to a democracy and should not be taken away due to internment or any other reason.

MikeB4

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#1028984 22-Apr-2014 09:36

sir1963:
Fred99:
KiwiNZ:
Fred99: The system (prison) doesn't seem to work very well in NZ (deterrent to crime, and rehabilitation).
NZ has a relatively high rate of incarceration - and a poor performance with recidivism.

Restorative justice will always have varying levels of success, it is still better than retributive justice. But again the choice to reoffend is a conscientious choice. Loss voting an outcome of that choice.

You are talking about "ideology" not reality - as despite apparent efforts made, the high recidivism rates (>70% in NZ?) seem to show that "rehabilitation" is mainly a myth.
So not only do we have high prison rates, but the apparent "willingness" of ex-prisoners to re-offend seems to show that it's not acting as a deterrent (nor serving the function of keeping the public safe). It is a retributive system - many people are happy with that, and in fact want it more retributive.

But we don't rehabilitate in NZ, our prisons are punitive. Ww don't have any rights to complaint then when "rehabilitation" fails.

We also live in a society that seems to be more than happy to spend $80,000 plus a year per prisoner but begrudge them benefits which costs a lot less.

Society is keen to punish "Benefit abusers", last year benefit fraud cost about $100 Million

Corporate tax fraud and high income tax fraud however cost about $15 BILLION , yet little is done about this.

We put poor people in prison for theft of hundreds of dollars, yet fraud by accountants, lawyers, business executives who steal thousands of times that are not punished more harshly , why not ?

Surely the idea of prison is a deterrent , the educated, the wealthy have less reason to commit crime, yet they are not deterred.

Do you have some links showing tax fraud etc costing NZ $15 Billion? There is a huge difference between legal avoidance and tax fraud.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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MikeB4

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#1028986 22-Apr-2014 09:38

raytaylor:
charsleysa: Currently New Zealand has a Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy as our form of government.

I would like to hear your thoughts about whether we should keep the current form of government or seek a new form of government.

Dictatorship under one ruler: Our benevolent leader Ray

First thing I would do once in power, is eliminate all squares. Nothing good ever happens to dictators in squares.

Squares are good, you cannot tell a person to go stand in the corner of a circle, but you can drive nuts if you order them to do so. There is good in circles and squares

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

gzt

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#1028987 22-Apr-2014 09:41

raytaylor:
charsleysa: Currently New Zealand has a Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy as our form of government.

I would like to hear your thoughts about whether we should keep the current form of government or seek a new form of government.

Dictatorship under one ruler: Our benevolent leader Ray

First thing I would do once in power, is eliminate all squares. Nothing good ever happens to dictators in squares.

Highly accurate, on topic and funny at the same time. ; ).

Geektastic

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#1029004 22-Apr-2014 10:13

Fred99: The system (prison) doesn't seem to work very well in NZ (deterrent to crime, and rehabilitation).
NZ has a relatively high rate of incarceration - and a poor performance with recidivism.

It doesn't work very well because

(a) we don't use it much - only 2% of burglary charges resulted in a prison sentence last year
(b) we don't put the perps in there long enough and we make it far too pleasant when we do.

Put me in charge and you'd have a minimum 5 year sentence for any offence rising to life with no parole fairly quickly and they'd be working in orange jumpsuits clearing rubbish in chain gangs, mending roads, working as unpaid builder's labour, breaking rocks to road metal by hammer and so on and so forth. With armed guards, who have orders to shoot to kill after a single warning if they try to escape.

I doubt all but the insane would want to suffer that twice.

Fred99

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#1029035 22-Apr-2014 11:13

Geektastic:
Fred99: The system (prison) doesn't seem to work very well in NZ (deterrent to crime, and rehabilitation).
NZ has a relatively high rate of incarceration - and a poor performance with recidivism.

It doesn't work very well because

(a) we don't use it much - only 2% of burglary charges resulted in a prison sentence last year
(b) we don't put the perps in there long enough and we make it far too pleasant when we do.

Put me in charge and you'd have a minimum 5 year sentence for any offence rising to life with no parole fairly quickly and they'd be working in orange jumpsuits clearing rubbish in chain gangs, mending roads, working as unpaid builder's labour, breaking rocks to road metal by hammer and so on and so forth. With armed guards, who have orders to shoot to kill after a single warning if they try to escape.

I doubt all but the insane would want to suffer that twice.

Before getting into such knee-jerk reaction - no doubt brought to the fore in NZ by the comments by Jamie Whyte from the ACT Party, please take a look at some statistics:

There are two things which are very apparent:

"Resolution rate" is extremely poor at <14%.
The rate of recorded burglary has been falling significantly over the past 20 years - it's almost halved!

Of course it's still too much - but hardly cause for hand-wringing despair. The solution will not be found by implementing more harsh penalties. The thing that would reduce petty crime is to instill the belief that in carrying out such crime, there's a high probability of being caught, and (of course) that the penalty will be unpleasant (but that doesn't mean public floggings etc). Of the 14% "resolved", no doubt many or most are cases of stupid burglars, and no doubt some better organised burglars can get away with repeat offending knowing from "career experience" that the chance that they'll be caught is close to nil.
Chucking people in prison for property offences is pretty dumb - prisons as we run them are "criminal schools" - not by design perhaps, but definitely by statistics. It should be the last resort, reserved for violent offenders from whom society needs to be protected, and for people convicted of lesser offences who refuse to comply with other - more appropriate and hopefully rehabilitative - punishments imposed by the courts.

Thanks to talkback radio, disingenuous electioneering, and bad journalism, it always seems to get back to harsher penalties being "the answer". Where do you stop - with public de-limbing in city squares?
It's politically unpalatable to suggest the obvious answer which will work - more funding to the police to enable them to investigate and prosecute property crime.

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