Island Life: Driving around Mt Eden, looking for a bed.
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According to Labour, this isn't about building a permanent prison out of modular containers - it's about temporary accomodation to house the burgeoning prison population before they get around to building permanent.
THAT I have a problem with.
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According to Nat Radio this a.m. they'd all have windows, toilets, and be insulated, proper floors etc.
And underfloor heating & plasma TVs etc etc
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If you want to build modular prison cells, do a decent job and design it properly and build it from raw materials
This might actually help a boost to a few NZ businesses with good modular housing ideas, and even give prisoners a chance to develop and use construction skills that don't just involve blowtorching windows out of steel boxes. But whoa, heaven forbid we should encourage proper Kiwi ingenuity in building good efficient options from the start, rather than in bodging halfpie solutions from a pile of crap. That'd be too dear anyway. Didn't you notice there's a recession on? And who wants to be nice to crims, particularly now?
... at the moment a bit of creative up-cycling is a good option... I don't see any problem as using them for housing in general, let alone prisons. As I said, I've seen container houses that looked more liveable than many of the London flats I had lived in at the time, and just as good as what seem to me to be very reasonable apartments in NZ.
I'd say right on, but something tells me that if some of our inmates do end up staying in shipping container-based accommodation, they are not going to benefit from the same level of thoughtful design work that has gone into the buildings you describe. Otherwise, they just won't be a satisfying el cheapo option, which is obviously what this is really all about.
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Hey, maybe Ports of Auckland could offer leased space with containers and a good strong iron fence thrown in. A little party central, a little Jailhouse Rock, could be a happening thing.
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Architectured containers would seem to lend themselves to a different living configuration - ie, it's easy to connect them and build roofed spaces between them , so you could have a small complex with bed/bath spaces around the perimeter and communal area within. Rather than the huge fortified barns. Surely this kind of model would have much lower construction costs and meet similar objectives? They would also be transportable if designed well.
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The cost of building accommodation to the standard of the new Spring Hill prison in Meremere, south of Auckland, works out at about $643,000 per bed. Using shipping containers, the cost is an estimated $380,000 per bed.
See, I said they were expensive. It would be cheaper to build them three bedroom houses in Manurewa
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See, I said they were expensive. It would be cheaper to build them three bedroom houses in Manurewa
How can they be that expensive? I can buy an 80 square metre kitset home & have it built, plumbed & powered, whiteware included for less than $150k.
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My lawyer with be instructed to come up with another idea in due corse.
That sounds very itchy, has he not heard of cotton?
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With the closure of the American Penal Colonies many of Privately owned ships were used as prisons. Then eventually those that could sail went to the Australia penal colonies.
If it is merely a question of finding a suitable site for a penal colony then perhaps we could make some use of the Ross Dependency. What with global warming occuring it is only a short matter of time before it becomes a sub-sub-tropical paradise and we can start establishing a justifiable claim. Prisoners to be housed in shipping containers until such time as they construct locally made houses out of natural materials (ice and seals). Before long they'll have a booming economy based on the local resources (ice and seals) and be beating us at ice-hockey.
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I can buy an 80 square metre kitset home & have it built, plumbed & powered, whiteware included for less than $150k.
Yes, and I could bust out of it any time I liked by shouldering the door. Assuming that the figure quoted was credible, it wouldn't surprise me if making things secure, fireproof, and safe for a lone correction officer is what bumps up the cost.
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<quote>How can they be that expensive?/quote>Search me. It may have something to do with those people that do the costings for govt. departments.
Cost of container. $2,500
fitout (labour & materials) $3,500
Land cost $60,000
Use of desk $10,000
Use of Govt. pen $30,000
Staples $40,000
Paper $4,000
Resource Consent $30,000
consultation $200,000 -
How can they be that expensive? I can buy an 80 square metre kitset home & have it built, plumbed & powered, whiteware included for less than $150k.
Imagine you were to rent to a 130 kg tenant who suffers from ADHD, pyromania and has anger management issues that is confined to your house for 20 hours a day and who really, really does not like you. $150,000 kitset might not be the most durable solution and insurance could be an issue.
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Shipping containers are loaded with symbolic meaning. Just imagine if some clever dick politician, one-day decides to load all these prison containers, ant there prisoners onto trains.
But they closed the Gisborne line years ago, and there's no prisoners on the West Coast, so they couldn't be sent east.
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But shipping containers are terrifically strong - eight times stronger than required by US building laws (I got that off the sites Tom Beard linked to) - if they are built in, say, an octagonal configuration with a roofed communal area in the middle, the only strengthening required is a Beagle Boy-proof entryway and however they do windows - double glazing and bars??
If containers cost $3k each at the cheap end, I fail to see where the $300,000 (each) do-up cost comes from. Disallowing Mr Barnes' analysis of govt. contracting practices - surely not in Honest John's New Zillland??
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Sorry, I meant "Consultation" nudge nudge
(formally known as Public/ Private Partnership or "backhanders" to mates) -
"Consultation" nudge nudge
My Research and Consultation offer is in the mail to Crusher as we speak :-)
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$150,000 kitset might not be the most durable solution and insurance could be an issue.
Heh, I didn't say that kitset home was flash or anything. And a container is a darn sight cheaper to begin with and already made of very secure material. That $360 seems very a very high estimate to me.
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Assuming that the figure quoted was credible, it wouldn't surprise me if making things secure, fireproof, and safe for a lone correction officer is what bumps up the cost.
Yeah, could be.
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In other totally unrelated news, another Beaglehole moment,
Every chronic disease death postponed means, on average, an extra 10-15 years of life - with consequent economic advantages to the country.
One would presume the "extra" 10-15 years would be at the end of ones life, you know, when your getting your pension.
Another stunning example of playing fast and loose with costs an' shit. -
I see seriously bad sociological problems in using shipping containers as prison cells. Shipping containers are loaded with symbolic meaning.
I agree - reminiscent of the 'ship of fools'.
'Michel Foucault, in "Madness and Civilization", claimed that "ships of fools" were used as primitive concentration camps, to dispose of people having mental disorders. He further claims that these ships were routinely denied permission to dock anywhere, and thus were stranded at sea, sailing endlessly from port to port.' -Wikipedia
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This would be a more impressive initiative if it came at the tail end of some serious analysis about how to reduce our extraordinarily high rate of incarceration.
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Don, quite. I still predict this government will be remembered not for what it did, but for what it failed to do.
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Architectured containers would seem to lend themselves to a different living configuration - ie, it's easy to connect them and build roofed spaces between them , so you could have a small complex with bed/bath spaces around the perimeter and communal area within. Rather than the huge fortified barns. Surely this kind of model would have much lower construction costs and meet similar objectives? They would also be transportable if designed well.
As much as possible, prisons can be designed so that the design suits rehabilative purposes. But it's still a prison. You can't just go "that would be nice" and put some containers around a roofed in area. You need to be able to lock down and separate prisoners in an emergency. Everything needs to be part o the structure, you can't just add heating or lights or anything like you can in a normal house - you have to build everything into the walls securely. There are various security levels and types of prisoners that have to be kept apart. There's also staff and their needs. You wouldn't put many prisoners into little modular units like you've described, as you'd have to assign at least a couple of staff to each of them for each shift. You'd need more staff than prisoners (it takes 5 staff be one person for 24/7) just to be in their units, let alone all the other staff that the prison requires.
Prisons are incredibly expensive things to build. Corrections just spent years building four new ones, and they're only just keeping up with the increased number of clients. The container (which could only ever be the outside frame) is the least of the costs.
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This would be a more impressive initiative if it came at the tail end of some serious analysis
Come now Don. This Government was voted in on a promise of being "Better" and having "Ideas" and a man who was "Ambitious" for New Zealand, not finding solutions to actual problems.
Mr. Key has fulfilled his ambition, he "Owns" New Zealand and his cohorts are full of "Ideas" and as for "Better", better get me a bucket.
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