Posts by Lucy Stewart
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What "repeated allusions" would they be? I responded to some dork suggesting that I was an uneducated redneck ...I mentioned my work history prior to returning to the Ivory Tower I had abandoned 11 years previously just once...
But this is getting tedious...no-one here - ironically it seems with the exception of Lucy Stewart - is at all interested in debating the "three strikes" proposal...like all intellectuall lefties, you just KNOW you're right and those of us who disagree are redneck idiot bigots (feel free to add another alternative label)
Well, here's a shocking suggestion - you could try *reading the whole thread*, not just the bits where people agree with you. I'm happy to debate, but you're turning this into something of an echo chamber (c.f.: not answering my question about why incest was still in there, despite responding to other parts of that post.) Otherwise you just seem disingenuous. To be honest, I'm not precisely sure what you're trying to accomplish here, apart from getting everyone to agree with you, which could take....a while.
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Yes Lucy, they were all convicted and sentenced for offences which would have qualified them as "strikers" under the Bill as I drafted it, which actually had, as "strike" offences, pretty much the same list as it has now. I then thought the list a little too broad and narrowed it down; (see the version on the ACT website) the Nats have pretty much restored my original list of offences.
Thanks for clarifying that - it just wasn't quite clear.
This is a left wing site isn't it? Are you all champions of the "proles" or is that only the ones who agree with you?
Oh, no, we only champion the poor people who agree with our every word and slavishly worship us as their benevolent overlords, naturally. I mean, why would we do it, otherwise?
(Yes. That *is* sarcasm.)
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You know, this discussion might have been completely different if the legislation were called the Recidivist Violent Offender Incapacitation Bill.
Indeed. For starters, "(R)VOIB" is close enough to "VOIP" to be confusing.
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This *would* be the afternoon my internet connection went down, wouldn't it?
David, since you're participating, how many of those 78 people you mention had been sentences to three or more sentences of more than five years? You say they had served more than three "sentence" episodes; you do not mention whether in all cases the length of these would have qualified them under the three strikes law. I assume that you can affirm this, but I'm curious, since you weren't specific. I note also that since this thread tended towards affirming that the law sounded at the least reasonably formulated, before we moved onto other topics, and if this were the case, it would seem to confirm that. (Although, hey, any explanations for the inclusion of incest in addition to all the other sexual assault offences?)
And, while it seems I've been defended in my absence, to recap Giovanni: you don't know anything about me, and making assumptions about my background which are irrelevant to the argument do, at the least, come across as ad hominem. How does my class possibly affect the matter debated? It may not have been meant insultingly, but it came across as an attempt to diminish my argument on the basis of my identity, which I don't think anyone here appreciates.
If you're worried about my hotel room joke - well, it was meant jokingly. I'm sorry if you felt it was an attack on your person rather than your ideals; I certainly didn't mean it that way.
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Aw, thanks, guys.
Leading on from Steven and Joe's posts, you both mirror my experiences with petty criminals: they turn to crime because it seems easier, and it seems easier because life seems insurmountable if you're semi-literate, or very poor, or just not very bright. Turning prisons into hard-labour camps just reinforces - especially to first-time offenders - that the world, personified by the State, is out to get them. The comparison to Auckland Zoo is especially apt. If we treat prisoners like they're less than human, what can we expect in return?
Which isn't to say, as I noted earlier in the thread, that there aren't some hardened and unrepentant criminals who need to be locked away to protect society at large. But they're not the majority, and, importantly, we need to consider how to protect *other prisoners* from them - if Graeme Burton is stabbing people in prison, then we're failing to protect society from him, because prisoners are also part of society. If we say they aren't, if we exclude them to that level, then no wonder they don't see any value in playing by society's rules.
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Lucy Stewart illustrates the reality that by and large, the middle class don't understand that deprivation of liberty per se is NOT a great punishment for many criminals.
I'll cheerfully cop to being a hideously overprivileged upper-middle-class white girl who's never been near a prison. Funnily enough, though, I can spot the flaw here, as others have kindly pointed out: if prison is a better option than life outside - and that's assuming people aren't making light of it to look tough, because long-term separation from your family isn't a joke for anyone, and you've got to be blind to assume that all criminals are uncaring automatons - *if* it is, then the problem is that people on the outside are suffering. Because, yeah, being locked up for years at a time *is* a punishment - the restriction of freedom *is* a punishment - and if you don't have the imagination to see that, then, well, I honestly don't know what to say to you. If three square meals a day is that much of an attraction, then perhaps we could look at why people *aren't* getting three square meals a day outside of prison.
(And yes, I know that in Garret's world the answer is "because they're lazy scumbags", but I'm trying for a higher degree of discourse here.)
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LOL Google News finds me this amusing gem. Emma's slip up is nothing compared to this
Er, actually? Section 92A was also known as the "three strikes" law at one point, and that's what they're referencing. My techie fiance thought that's what I was talking about when I asked him what he thought about the "three strikes" law. It's amusing in context, but it's not a genuine error.
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Aw, thank you. I spent hours hunting through our archives for examples and then carefully context-washing them.
See, my mind is busy trying to imagine context. It's, uh, interesting. Or one variety thereof.
And it's reduced most people's faith in their ability to sing/make music of their own, as they compare themselves to the recorded standard. There's certainly a fair amount of regress mitigating the progress.
Hopefully sufficiently off the main topic: I recall hearing in dicussions of alternate histories/time travel that one of the things a time-traveller would notice the most about the past is the number of people singing and playing instruments, completely unselfconsciously. It's interesting to imagine.
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You haven't watched the extended version on the DVD then?
I'm not *that* much of a masochist.
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I'm a bit out of touch with how many murders are committed in NZ every year these days (thirty?), but i'd guess that of those murders, all but maybe one or two would have been committed by people with some kind of previous serious convictions and probably prision time.
Around half, if not more, of murders in New Zealand are also domestic violence incidents*, so I wouldn't be surprised if this were not true. High profile murders are committed by people with long records; many others are someone losing their nut and bashing their partner or offspring. It's equally as serious, but not as good for publicity.
*Disclaimer: this is based on the number of people murdered last year in DV incidents as per a It's Not Okay ad on the back of a bus , divided by the average number of murders a year (about 50-60). Take that as you will.