Speaker by Various Artists

I forgot to mention, you can sign our No To Serco petition here....

http://www.actionstation.org.nz/noserco

We'll be in touch!

Expect the report to be released over the Christmas/New Year holiday period.

Johnnyboy wont be making a mention of the history Oh no no
From the Harold..

"I am pleased to welcome Judith Collins back to Cabinet. Judith has been a competent Minister, and will quickly be able to pick up the Police and Corrections portfolios that she has successfully held before."

Successfully held before... its what the man said...

Heard that Serco was also about to be given a contract to provide 'care' for some of our most severely disabled adults, until the prison mess made the media. After all there isn't much difference between prisoners and disabled people, is there? Neither have voice nor status. I hope the new minister doesn't revive that one.

Hopefully, her time on the Education and Science Select committee and their current inquiry into special education issues has given her new insights so she won't make statements in the future like the one she made a few years ago about the anticipated punishment an autistic man could expect in jail (and which was reported on Public Address).

Heard that Serco was also about to be given a contract to provide ‘care’ for some of our most severely disabled adults, until the prison mess made the media.

Please, please tell me they were not going to hand over the care of some of the TRT clients?

Those people have suffered enough already...

...given her new insights so she won't make statements in the future like the one she made a few years ago about the anticipated punishment an autistic man could expect in jail (and which was reported on Public Address).

I think Grant Robertson was correct when he doubted that Collins' inflamatory comments were directed at a specific individual, though she certainly made no effort to clarify her position once the media and police had colluded to deal to their scapegoat. Michael Lhaws, for one, got particularly vile and personal over that case. There were genuine cases of looting at the time, with even Phil Goff making a throwaway crack about summary executions.

And if Collins fails Key will still be a happy chappie.

I think Grant Robertson was correct when he doubted that Collins’ inflamatory comments were directed at a specific individual, though she certainly made no effort to clarify her position once the media and police had colluded to deal to their scapegoat.

I think it was the implication of prison rape ("with a cellmate") that was really beyond the pale. That's a long way below the standard of character we should expect in a minister of the Crown.

I think it was the implication of prison rape ("with a cellmate") that was really beyond the pale. That's a long way below the standard of character we should expect in a minister of the Crown.

Absolutely. In the mid-2000s a South Australian TV ad publicising increased penalties for drink driving was quickly pulled after an outcry over its closing scene. A middle-class everybloke finds himself cast into jail where he's checked out by the resident rough trade, with the clear implication that he's in for some extra-judicial punishment of a sexual nature. As someone noted at the time, once we officially endorse such things, we're the perpetrators.

After all there isn't much difference between prisoners and disabled people, is there?

Prisoners get more investment in gaining employment. Better a crim than a crip, apparently.

Prisoners get more investment in gaining employment. Better a crim than a crip, apparently.

In terms of 'acceptable' government expenditure for daily upkeep, most definitely. No problem spending over $100,000 per year per prisoner. I guess a disabled person would have to pose a threat to the community to warrant such an investment.

Now there's a thought.

And, and, there is much less of an outcry when a disabled person is denied their rights, neglected, abused or even killed while in 'care'.

It would be interesting to survey employers and see whether they'd be more (or less) inclined to employ a crim rather than a crip.

It may come down to a willingness to see crims being reintegrated into society, whereas some disabled have never been fully integrated.

I think it was the implication of prison rape (“with a cellmate”) that was really beyond the pale. That’s a long way below the standard of character we should expect in a minister of the Crown.

It's below what we should expect of anyone. Ever. This crap is textbook rape culture and it just has to stop.

No problem spending over $100,000 per year per prisoner. I guess a disabled person would have to pose a threat to the community to warrant such an investment.

If this line of argument is pushed hard enough, we end up with hard labour and bread and water diets for prisoners, who we keep in the most inhumane conditions possible.

I agree - we need to do much better with respect to how we support disabled people.

But we also need to be very careful about how we treat people whom we have used the power of the state to incarcerate. The state has extraordinary power over prisoners, and we need to be very sure that power is exercised responsibly. Otherwise we become complicit in brutalising prisoners.

Matt Nippert's article last year reminds us what Collins has not been cleared of.

Agreed. This isn't an either/or. Because the state has to care for prisoners and that costs money doesn't equate to that money being taken from disabled people. That line of argument is pretty much the one National have been spinning for the last eight years with regards to Social Security. There's money for both, it's just usually we're told there isn't.

The Serco and prisoner issue has taken a lot of the public space in the last seven months or so, obscuring other issues at times. But that's just the nature of the Fight Club videos, combined with Lotu-Iiga's description of Serco as 'excellent' which made this issue an expanding topic in the public consciousness.

But we also need to be very careful about how we treat people whom we have used the power of the state to incarcerate. The state has extraordinary power over prisoners, and we need to be very sure that power is exercised responsibly. Otherwise we become complicit in brutalising prisoners.

It would be very easy to get into an us and them slugfest here...and who has the time or the inclination?

But...the State also exercises its power still to incarcerate disabled people. Or refuses funded supports to those it considers 'too high needs' to live in their own home. So those people are left in a very vulnerable positions. Small wonder they feel like the lowest form of life in our community when they are told by the Ministry of Health...you are not entitled to funded care, while Corrections quite happily spends twice the amount per criminal than it would cost to support that disabled person to live free.

As for being brutallised...to save me a swag more typing...read my little update on Te Roopu Taurima O Manukau...here http://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/access-disability-abuse-its-not-ok/?p=352922#post352922

We, as a community, are already complicit in brutalising disabled people.

The really, really sad thing is that while there are truly committed and voiciferous advocates for prisoners...there is a distinct lack of the same for the disabled.

Why? Probably, IMHO, shitloads of government $$$ have gone into funding various 'disability advocate organisations' on the proviso, seemingly, that they do very little in the way of actual advocacy.

Today's Tremain

Bloody hell!

Bloody hell!

TPPA...
Saudi bribes...
Cartels OK...
Judith Collins....

Just what is this country being groomed for?

Private Business, Public Failure

Auckland University sociologist Dr Tracey McIntosh points out that if we go right back to European settlement, there’s a long history of locking up Maori. “There was a desire to incarcerate significant numbers of our people,” she says.

It’s a salient point, given the fact that more than half of the prison population today, is Maori.

The recent rise in prison growth begins in the mid-1970s. The muster bounced around about 2800, a rate of about 90 per 100,000 people, before New Zealand embarked on a remarkable period of emptying out cells.

By 1985, the muster was down to 2200, a rate of 67 per 100,000. Consider that if this was our rate now, we’d be on a par with Scandinavian countries praised for their low imprisonment.

Instead, between the mid-80s and the mid-2000s, the number of prison sentences handed down jumped 47 per cent. By 2007 the prison muster was about 8300.

A focus on community sentences saw numbers flatten somewhat for the next few years.

But now, prisons are a growth industry again. And the rate of imprisonment is more than 200 per 100,000.

Inside out – Aaron Smale

Article adapted for international consumption:

Why are there so many Maori in New Zealand’s prisons