Here We Go Again

Crime and Punishment

Garth McVicar has written an opinion piece in the NZ Herald on crime and prisons in New Zealand. 

The saying, "We reap what we sow", highlights the farming experience that if you don't work in partnership with nature, you get a dud crop. It comes to mind when I think about the latest twist in the crime and punishment debate; the number of people in prisons.  The focus on the product of crime, prisoners and victims, gives little attention to the root causes of the problem. That is to say, we are worried by what we're reaping and not enough by what we're sowing.

Minister of Justice Andrew Little wants to find ways to reduce the prison population. Essentially, this will be achieved by softening bail legislation and making parole easier to get.  The result will be more offenders on the streets. The streets will become more dangerous and public safety will suffer as a consequence.

The inconvenient truth about high prison rates is that crime has fallen. New Zealand's homicides peaked at 176 a year but have now declined to around 80 per year and are still falling.  As New Zealand locked up its criminals for longer, the terrible crimes that resulted in the formation of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, such as those against Teresa Cormack, Kylie Smith and Karla Cardno, have declined. But locking people up is a response to criminals, not the complete answer to preventing the creation of criminals.

Violent crime rates are dropping substantially in New Zealand.  Prison numbers are rising.  McVicar argues that there is a causal connection between these two hard statistical measures.  In other words, the reason violent crime statistics are reducing is due to violent offenders being kept longer in prison. 

The extremely liberal Labour Government finds this offensive.  Labour denies McVicar's causal link. Its position appears to be this: when it reduces prison numbers as it plans to do, it will have no effect on the incidence of violent crime in New Zealand.  Rather, Labour's position appears to be that reducing prison numbers will create a virtuous circle whereby reducing the number of people in prisons will actually reduce criminal offending in New Zealand. 

That is an extremely bold position to hold.  But there it is.  Labour in all its glory. 

Actually, in order to get to Labour's naive position, they have to add in a couple of suppressed, or hidden, premises.  Their whole case turns upon these not-so-often-talked-about beliefs.

Rare Bipartisan Co-Operation

No Rednecks Here

There are some proposals for prison reform in the US which are bipartisan and have begun making their way through the legislature.

With a prison reform bill working its way through Congress, President Donald Trump gave the effort a significant boost Friday by asking Congress to get a bill attacking the issue to his desk, The Hill reported.  The First Step Act recently made it through the House Judiciary Committee last week with a 25-to-5 vote.  “There is no substitute for personal accountability and there is no tolerance for those who take advantage of society’s generosity to prey upon the innocent,” Trump said. “But if we want more prisoners to take charge of their own lives, then we should work to give them the tools to stand on their own two feet.”  [The Blaze]

This sort of thing rarely gets huge press coverage.  It's too boring.  It lacks sensational punch, so is often overlooked.  On the other hand, there are have been lots of similar or related proposals in the US over the years.  What's in this one?

The House of Representatives is currently considering a bill that is referred to as the First Step Act. The full title is the “Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person Act.”  . . . .

The bill seeks to reduce the recidivism rate by improving conditions and development opportunities for inmates in federal prisons, allowing them the chance to be job-ready upon their release and lowering the chances that they fall back into the same criminal lifestyle that caused them to be incarcerated in the first place.