Jacinda

[TheDemonLord]

Fair point.

But a slippery slope.

Decades ago, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, installed hundreds of CCTV cameras around the city centre in an effort to curb vandalism and violence when the (dozens) of pubs emptied out.
It worked. To such an extent that my dear old mam is quite comfortable going into the city centre on a Saturday night.

The flip side is the ongoing privacy bleaters and the fact that the crime shifted to periphery areas without cameras.

Yes, give teh Federales a fair crack of the whip and ban wet bus tickets.

There's a big difference though between CCTV (which I have some philosophical qualms with) and an eponymous Officer on the beat.

To put a different spin on it though, consider the crime of petty theft - I've experienced it previously and it sucks, the Police don't bother to investigate and simple shrug and say 'Claim it on your insurance'. Imagine if the Police chased down Burglary in the same manner they do speeding. Would it send a message? Possibly.

This is IMO the thin end of the Wedge - last year, during the Summer Holidays, I was walking to work, I walked through a car park (as I usually do) and there were 3 youths with a Slim Jim trying to break into a car.

By Youths, I mean I doubt any of them were much older than 13. I yelled at them and sent them packing and called the Police, but they had scurried off.

And I'll be honest, it damn near broke my heart.

I remember getting up to some mischief at 13, never going equipped to steal and Auto Burglary.

Did I want them to get caught? Absolutely, perhaps the next time I come upon such a situation I may consider a citizen's arrest - but I didn't want them to get caught so they could be hauled off in handcuffs and thrown in a Cell.

At that age, yes there needs to be some punishment - but without a means to turn them from the path they are currently on it's a fools errand, may as well lock them up till they are in their 50s and burn the millions of dollars of Tax Payer money that we will waste keeping them locked up.

I don't actually want that, I'd rather they get the tools they need to make the right choices to become productive, upstanding members of society.

Which leads to perhaps the biggest factor in all of this - there is study after study that shows that Families who grow up without a Father are worse of Financially (which can lead to temptation) and the boys who grow up fatherless tend to suffer from poor impulse control, Anger and other attributes that manifest in an increased risk of turning to a criminal life.

And if we can't have fathers in the home, the next best thing we can do for young boys is to have an everpresent Male Role Model, maybe a teacher or sports coach or nextdoor neighbour or someone.

[TheDemonLord]

Fair call, too.

But I think the issue is that society needs more effective deterrents to stem crime. Don't ask me what, though.

In addition to my other post, something else to consider: Crime, like most things, has a Pareto distribution. That is, a small minority are responsible for the vast majority. It's roughly defined as half of the creative output is done by the square root of the people. So if you consider a prison with 100 criminals, 10 of them have committed 50% of the crimes.

As a thought experiment (because I don't think we are anywhere close to having the legal sophistication and technological tools available to do this) - consider this:

Currently we put both all types in Prison, The people who had a bad day and made a terrible choice and the people who have made a conscious decision to be a Criminal. Does anyone think that the the person who made a mistake is going to rub-off positively on the Career criminal, or do we think the Career Criminal is going to corrupt that individual?

As loathed as I am to cite a Marxist - but I think Pëtr Kropotkin description of Prisons as 'Universities of Crime' isn't too far from the mark.

Should the Punishment that we give to the individual who has the capability for redemption be the same as that which we give to those who don't? What should we do with those hardened Criminals - this is one argument for the Death penalty - individuals like John Wayne Gacy or Denis El Radar or Gary Ridgeway or Stewart Wilson - the only rational response is to kill them. A Step below them are people who are so embedded in the life of being a Criminal that it's only likely with the passage of time and a significant change in their personal situation that they are likely to change - Michael Francese is an example of this - do we lock those type of individuals up until Old Age robs them of the fevers and follys of youth?

If we had the means, both Legal and technological to determine what sort of person the individual was - were they a closet Psychopath? were they someone who made some poor choices? etc.

Could we tailor justice to the individual so that at the end of their sentence, they came out reformed? Would that be acceptable to the victims of the crimes they committed? Would that deter others in the future?

To me, the 'one size fits all' model of incarceration and punishment has a role to play in our recidivism rate - and props to the Nordic countries for trying to do something about it.

One final thought - one things that does seem to be an inoculate against Criminality is Hope and Faith - this is where you get the age-old story of the Prisoners who discovers religion in prison and comes out a changed man. JBP talks a lot about a secular hope, the sense of self-worth that you get from doing something difficult and reaping the rewards for it. Perhaps there's something in that, that if we as a society were smart enough, we could figure out a way to universalize that transformation and do so without the invocation of a Super Natural diety.

[sugilite:Me]

A complicated subject. I feel the youth that are committing these crimes, seemingly with impunity - I would like to see them do work in the community, such as building sea walls and such like. Bang up portacoms, or prefabs, don't put them in prison with hardened criminals. Bore them straight, but at the same time show them that when they work, shit gets done, with the added bonus of doing something positive for the community. Who knows, it might work.

[TheDemonLord]

A complicated subject. I feel the youth that are committing these crimes, seemingly with impunity - I would like to see them do work in the community, such as building sea walls and such like. Bang up portacoms, or prefabs, don't put them in prison with hardened criminals. Bore them straight, but at the same time show them that when they work, shit gets done, with the added bonus of doing something positive for the community. Who knows, it might work.

This.

Preach.

[neels]

Sounds good to the simple minded. Ask yourself, well maybe not. Ask someone else how the Police decide who is a gang member and who is not.

There were stories that in Queensland after their anti gang laws any more than 3 motorcyclists together could be considered a gang, and therefore stopped by police for as long as they felt it necessary to investigate. Not that Queensland police could ever be accused of being corrupt.

I mean, there's a rather simple test that most Kiwis would consider valid:

"Are they flying Gang Colours and Patches?"

Yes, but then you have to define what are considered 'gang colours', or what 'patches' are bad, and then effectively restricting the activities of law abiding people in the attempt to stop a small number who aren't. Kind of like changing firearms laws and affecting a bunch of law abiding people because of one fuckwit Australian

[TheDemonLord]

Yes, but then you have to define what are considered 'gang colours', or what 'patches' are bad, and then effectively restricting the activities of law abiding people in the attempt to stop a small number who aren't. Kind of like changing firearms laws because of one fuckwit Australian

See the second half of my post :P

however, to answer the question in the first half - it's pretty easy for a reasonable person to work out who is the fully patched gang member and who isn't.

They aren't known for their subtlety...

[sugilite:Me]

See the second half of my post :P

however, to answer the question in the first half - it's pretty easy for a reasonable person to work out who is the fully patched gang member and who isn't.

They aren't known for their subtlety...

I've heard that the Alpine Stars gang are bad arse motherfuckers

[TheDemonLord]

I've heard that the Alpine Stars gang are bad arse motherfuckers

I've heard they are mostly slightly overweight balding IT Technicians...

[husaberg]

So the dude that killed the shop keeper was a recent 501 deportee
This was a tragic crime and heinous but a few on here were very quick to blame the current Govt
501 deportations started in 2014 under what party again ......?
Also what party in aussie started it again....
whilst i am sure politicizing this will gain nothing but how about instesd of blaming the current govt
how about we address what these deportation of hardened criminal's are doing to NZ

[onearmedbandit]

Not me, I blame all governments equally.

[pritch]

It would seem that where youth crime is concerned the baby was tossed out with the bath water. Family group conferences are fine and many kids will straighten up after an FGC. If the kid doesn't straighten up though, they just keep having conferences even though it is obviously pointless. Unless he does something really serious.

If I may mention a "hypothetical" case? A group of kids break into a house, one holds a knife to the throat of the wife and tells the husband,
"Get the money or I'll kill the bitch."

This hypothetical kid was such a frequent flyer in the youth justice system that he had featured in no less than ten conferencess. It was obvious to the Police who the guilty party was and he was arrested immediately. Next morning he arrived in the local CYF office laughing and joking. Somebody questioned his carefree attitude.
"Why? Nothings going to happen to me."

That was the distillation of what he had learned in his ten conferencess.

He was wrong. He had graduated to a crime serious enough to send him to the big house. The adult one. Hypothetically of course.

[MD]

So the dude that killed the shop keeper was a recent 501 deportee
This was a tragic crime and heinous but a few on here were very quick to blame the current Govt
501 deportations started in 2014 under what party again ......?
Also what party in aussie started it again....
whilst i am sure politicizing this will gain nothing but how about instesd of blaming the current govt
how about we address what these deportation of hardened criminal's are doing to NZ

Another win for their deportation policy. Australia probably just saved one of its good citizens from being murdered. Why would they ever listen to bleating Jacinda asking them not to remove dangerous crims from their country.
Affirmative action that has demonstrably made Australia safer.
Sounds like something we have been asking for here.

[pete376403]

Another win for their deportation policy. Australia probably just saved one of its good citizens from being murdered. Why would they ever listen to bleating Jacinda asking them not to remove dangerous crims from their country.
Affirmative action that has demonstrably made Australia safer.
Sounds like something we have been asking for here.

Where (which country) would you suggest we send our crims too? Wonder if Russia would take them, to repurpose as Ukrainian cannon fodder.

[husaberg]

Another win for their deportation policy. Australia probably just saved one of its good citizens from being murdered. Why would they ever listen to bleating Jacinda asking them not to remove dangerous crims from their country.
Affirmative action that has demonstrably made Australia safer.
Sounds like something we have been asking for here.

Correct, indeed Why would they listen to Jacinda they sure as shit never listened to Key who was the nz prime minister when his allied Australian national party started the 501 deportations prior to Adern being part of the nz govt .

[MD]

Where (which country) would you suggest we send our crims too? Wonder if Russia would take them, to repurpose as Ukrainian cannon fodder.

I was referring to our need for some firm action against rising crime, not actually shipping them offshore. Mind you your suggestion of Russia has merit.