Comments for Online Forum: Rethinking Crime and Punishment

Comment on Developing a Positive Prison Culture (Part Two) by Terence

Terence — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:17:29 +0000

In my somewhat limited experience incarating some one into the prison system does nothing. I have been involved for some 30 years in the care of “difficult” young men. My experience in this area leads me to believe that until we recognise attachment issues that impact on juvenile offenders we are just going to increase the prison population. The social costs of this are horrendous.

Comment on Developing a Positive Prison Culture (Part Two) by VWTest

VWTest — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:36:03 +0000

I do agree with your statement in a theoretical sort of way, not having had the intense experience of imprisonment with the consequences you describe above. Logic says that your quotation is true and my experience of life’s downsides makes me aware that powerfully negative experiences, and I have had a few, can profoundly change us and re-form aspects of our personality and character.
‘We’ struggle I believe to factor in the impact of imprisonment on the incercerated offender. However, as I read on the ‘Rethinking’ website glimpses of what goes on in the Parole Boards I see signs that there is an identification with this side of the prison experience. At their best I think the Boards genuinely anguish on this issue and do appreciate the mutli-levels of punishment that incarceration means. However, until society gives a clearer and, I suggest, more understanding message about the true nature of imprisonment and the various levels of punishment it metes out, little will change.

Comment on Toward a Positive Justice by nate

nate — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:29:35 +0000

Hello. It seems that I agree with the sentiments and practical initiatives of the Rethinking Crime and Punishment organisation. However, after just reading the January post ‘Toward a positive justice’, I need to correct one thing. I am Jordan Herewini’s mother and he was not a ‘gang prospect’ as referred to in your post. He was associated with some who were either gang members or affiliates and he was at some points in his life attracted to that kind of lifestyle. He wanted much better for himself though, and he was on the verge of finding that. He was never a gang prospect and would never have joined a gang such as the one that killed him. He would never have been capable of such callous acts.

I hope one day to be able to contribute more to the debate over crime and punishment. Maybe when I am less raw.

Natalie Cowley

Comment on Developing a Positive Prison Culture (Part Two) by Tikva

Tikva — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:18:31 +0000

Yes, I completely agree with that statement! New Zealand does NOT take fully into account the impact of prison when offenders are sent there, and it from my experience of having a 17 yr old Son in a Youth Prison, society at large does not appear to care what sort of person is released.

Just prior to my Son’s serious offending, he almost succeeded at taking his own life, and if it had not been for a dog who would not let his owner continue with their walk in the bush, he would be dead. He needed, and still needs, one-on-one Therapy with a Qualified Professional (not just a Counsellor) on a regular basis. My Son has been incarcerated for over a year now (firstly in Youth Justice South, and then Youth Prison Unit), and it is only last week that he was finally able to start seeing someone.

And it took a phone call by myself to the Prison Manager to make it happen sooner than it would have otherwise. That is NOT how it should be.

FYI, I now Blog every letter my Son sends me since being sentenced to a Youth Prison Unit, with his permission, which you are more than welcome to read at http://ontheinside.kiwicommunity.co.nz/?cat=1

I personally am determined to do whatever I can to ensure that something is done about the lack of Mental Health Professionals available in Prisons in New Zealand. Not every prisoner needs to be sent to a Forensic Unit, but many prisoners have past issues that need the right kind of therapy to resolve and overcome them.

Comment on Positive Justice and Forgiveness by Kim Workman

Kim Workman — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:34:20 +0000

A reader has offered the following comment:

To say that someone has been “compelled” to forgive is a nonsense. Forgiveness that does not come from the heart is not forgiveness. I recollect a quotation, I cannot remember from whom, “She said she forgave him as a Christian, that is she did not forgive him at all.”

Forgiveness is for the forgiver, not for the forgiven. The only person whose forgiveness is of any help to the offender is himself. When we have offended, feel guilt, what we are feeling is that we have let ourselves down, that we have not lived up to our internal picture of ourselves, we have not behaved as well as we would like to think we normally did. Until we forgive ourselves we will feel guilt, and nothing the victim can say or do will help. In fact, the expression of forgiveness by the victim only serves to underline the fact that we have erred. Oscar Wilde was dead right.

But forgiveness of the offender can do a world of good to the victim, if it comes from the heart and is not just words put into his mouth by some well-meaning person, Christian or otherwise. It lets him move on. I have heard a hundred or more reports by facilitators of RJ conferences, and they have often expressed admiration for the forgiveness shown by the victim. And I have heard many instances of the victim refusing to accept an apology from the offender, because they doubted its sincerity. But I have never heard of a facilitator as much as suggesting that a victim express forgiveness. What would be the point?