Anti Social Behaviour Orders - Newsletter 42
By Kim Workman | July 30, 2008
This week’s newsletter sets out what Vivian Stern describes as “a gloomy scenario”. She sums it up this way:
“More people pushed into social exclusion and defined as „risky‟. More responses that are based on surveillance and control. Less use of traditional methods of social control through building social cohesion, setting up mutual associations and co-operatives, opening youth clubs, strengthening families, supporting parents, providing remedial education and job training. We need to take off all these spectacles and look again through different lenses at what a criminal justice policy looks like when the State stops treating people as things to control and remembers they are people, a policy that makes a country safer and happier. ”
Could ASBOs be used positively, to address “sub-criminal” behaviour? Or is it a human tendency, to use powers of that kind, not to reduce crime, but to ‘deal to’ label children and young people. What do you think”
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Prisoners and Employment - Newsletter 41
By Kim Workman | July 28, 2008
“A Second Chance” for Released Prisoners. The Department of Corrections investment in job training and work readiness is paying off, with more released prisoners ‘work ready’.
What should happen next? Does society need to ensure that the initial investment is not wasted, and do what it can to support those prisoners who want to change their ways, with employment, and social support, as they strive to get back into the community. Should government offer an incentive to those businesses that employ ex-prisoners? Should the community make a civic award available to businesses that hire ex-prisoners, and invest in their future? Or should it be the “survival of the fittest?” What do you think - let’s have your views.
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Victims and Justice - Newsletter 40
By Kim Workman | July 17, 2008
Why is it that the key personalities deny the effectiveness of restorative justice. Garth McVicar has referred to it as a “failed social experiment” and that it doesn’t work. Visiting author, David Fraser, claimed in his book “A Land Fit for Criminals” that there was no evidence to show that restorative justice worked , and that its main effect is to “neutralize the justified anger of those who have been victimised, and so reduce the possibility of public protest and demand for more prisoners”Even Simon Power MP, in a speech to the 25th Anniversary Prison Fellowship conference, who spoke in support of restorative justice, said that
“notwithstanding the positive evaluations for restorative justice pilots by victims that I referred to before, the impact on re offending seems to need some further analysis. And we can’t lose sight of that goal. The need to reduce re offending is one thing that actually unites politicians on all sides of the political spectrum. Getting them to agree on the best way to achieve that of course is slightly problematic.”
The evidence is clear and trends toward a positive evidence of education in reoffending. What is your view of the effectiveness of restorative justice? Should it become part of a parallel justice system? Should it be expanded?
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Creating Criminals - the Impact of the Organised Crime Bill on Youth Gangs - Newsletter 39
By Kim Workman | July 9, 2008
What do you think of Vivien Stern’s view of how we create criminals? Do you buy into the notion that people who offend, have often been victims themselves, and that their anti-social behaviour is a product of earlier victimisation? Is the Organised Crime Bill likely to have unintended consequences? Do you think enforcement is the only way to address the development youth gangs, or might there be other valid ways of controlling crime?
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What do we want from Our Prisons? - Newsletter 38
By Kim Workman | June 25, 2008
Andrew Coyle provides an alternative vision of what our prisons should look like? Should they be places of punishment and deprivation? Should they be places of rehabilitation? Or places to prepare offenders for release - and engagement with the law abiding community. What is your view? What do you think of Andrew’s views? Could New Zealand prisons set the standard for the rest of the world?
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