The lie of home detention

[nzoomed]

A  Prisons priority    is to keep    the public safe from violent offenders  ,  in this case  the judge failed miserably    knowing the  shooters prior violent offences  .  Oh &  home detention is nothing of the kind they can apply & are granted permision to  go  places if  the HD  causes hardship .    This one  was granted  permision to  go  back to his workplace    & it wasnt for  work    as  the employer would have to approve of him  being there first  . This was a complte failure  by the justice dept  they  have the  blood of the innocent victims on their hands

It appears he had been working there and been reporting in to corrections as per his conditions right up the the previous day. 
Now it's emerged he was sacked from the job (no surprises here) and sadly he returned to the job site and presumably took it all out on those who were working on the site.
Utterly tragic to say the least, yes tons of questions need to be asked and I'm sure it will all come out in the investigation whether or not the right course of action was made.

[oldschooler]

Just as there are hundreds if not more offenders on home D who do not grab a shotgun, or a knife and go murder their workmates. Or near neighbours.

Why should they be further punished because one damned fool couldn't use his brains to make better choices?

But it isn't about the others (whoever they are) it is about this one person who was let out and it would appear prematurely and people have lost their lives.  Those you speak of as hundreds if they pose no threat, fine and that has to be carefully determined before release on HD.  This is not about them is it.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

No. It is exactly about him, and the choices HE made to kill and injure others. My point is no system will ever be able to prevent a human being from doing something awful if they really want to do it. And if we try to make such a system we are going to damage the lives of many many others in the process.

Life is not a fair game. Being fit doesn't prevent disease. Having insurance doesn't stop disaster. Being wealthy does not mean happiness. And locking people up does not stop them doing awful things. Being a free and equitable community means accepting that bad stuff happens. Because we are human beings with free will and sometimes that is really bad news. When it is, blaming the system is really just a waste of time.

But it does serve the politicians rather well.

[king1]

Just as there are hundreds if not more offenders on home D who do not grab a shotgun, or a knife and go murder their workmates. Or near neighbours.

Why should they be further punished because one damned fool couldn't use his brains to make better choices?

But it isn't about the others (whoever they are) it is about this one person who was let out and it would appear prematurely and people have lost their lives.  Those you speak of as hundreds if they pose no threat, fine and that has to be carefully determined before release on HD.  This is not about them is it.

unless you can predict the future there is no way to definitively know with 100% certainty that the individual will behave while on home detention - and the only way to guarantee no individual will cause harm while on home detention would be to cancel the home detention system and penalise the hundreds of other individuals who do respect the system... Not too many would see that as a good thing...

When professionals are dealing with the human mind it can only ever be on a best effort basis, sometimes folks just lose it.  You can't really blame the people in the system if everything has been done correctly up to that point...  In due course we will find out if this was actually the case...

[oldschooler]

It isn't a case of being able to predict the future or 100% certainty. It is about following very strict process. This person has a history of violence. That in itself means the control is greater. An example of someone who should not have been put on HD.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Mmmmm, well a judge makes those decisions on the basis of what they hear during trial, and from the presentations of experts called upon to advise. Judges are not always right, but they do know more than we do.

[oldschooler]

They know more because they are in that position? Not necessarily. Liberal sentencing comes from a liberal view point and leads to more people doing crimes, increased judicial spending and bursting prisons leads to the need to do more and more HD. A person convicted of violent crime is not put on HD with an ability to go into the workplace.

[king1]

there is obviously some reason why he was allowed home detention that may not be in the public arena, maybe he had completed a mandatory anger management programme in prison, been a model prisoner or some such...

If he was still an angry man I can't imagine they would have allowed home detention and a work release. We shall have to wait for the details to be revealed in due course

[Oh_hunnihunni]

They know more because they are in that position?  Not necessarily.  Liberal sentencing comes from a liberal view point and leads to more people doing crimes, increased judicial spending and bursting prisons leads to the need to do more and more HD.  A person convicted of violent crime is not put on HD with an ability to go into the workplace.

No. They know more about the case before them than we do, because they hear all the evidence from all involved, which we do not. The gap between their opinion and ours is huge.

Which I guess is why they get the big bucks and we get gossip.

As for liberal sentencing leading to more crimes, I'm guessing you and I might agree on bringing back the death penalty for some...

[C_T_Russell]

The scumbag should have been locked up, you don't tag and release someone who broke his girlfriends neck and nearly strangled her to death. Classic example of the left being soft on crime. No excuse.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Lol, yeah, the left marched into the building site with a pump action shotgun and a really bad attitude.

Silly sausage...

[Lilith7]

The scumbag should have been locked up, you don't tag and release someone who broke his girlfriends neck and nearly strangled her to death. Classic example of the left being soft on crime. No excuse.

Whereas it appears that the right are perfectly happy to continue creating lifelong criminals using their 'get tough' nonsense - which they know doesn't work, but merrily continue to use in order to gain votes from the uninformed.

Heaven forfend any politicians here should take a look at what works in other countries & try it here, (adapt it if needed) since it would mean they couldn't use that ever so handy 'tough on crime' whenever there's an election coming up.

[C_T_Russell]

The scumbag should have been locked up, you don't tag and release someone who broke his girlfriends neck and nearly strangled her to death. Classic example of the left being soft on crime. No excuse.

Whereas it appears that the right are perfectly happy to continue creating lifelong criminals using their 'get tough' nonsense - which they know doesn't work, but merrily continue to use in order to gain votes from the uninformed.

Heaven forfend any politicians here should take a look at what works in other countries & try it here, (adapt it if needed) since it would mean they couldn't use that ever so handy 'tough on crime' whenever there's an election coming up.

The fact is that if this shooter was in prison where he belonged, none of this would have happened.
And yes luxon wants boot camps for youth offenders.
He says he has looked into the research from other countries overseas that have done it and the evidence is extremely convincing. He is being firm on his position.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

The evidence is nothing of the kind. Boot camps fail. Those called to run them are worse than those sent for 're education'.

The evidence for humanitarian approaches to corrections is also out there, along with the results. But hey, we'll just pretend that doesn't exist in order to beat the drum to punish the victims of poverty, deprivation, poor education, mental illness, and inequity. Much cheaper and easier than actually addressing the conditions that create youth crime, domestic violence, and all our other social ills.

[Lilith7]

Whereas it appears that the right are perfectly happy to continue creating lifelong criminals using their 'get tough' nonsense - which they know doesn't work, but merrily continue to use in order to gain votes from the uninformed.

Heaven forfend any politicians here should take a look at what works in other countries & try it here, (adapt it if needed) since it would mean they couldn't use that ever so handy 'tough on crime' whenever there's an election coming up.

The fact is that if this shooter was in prison where he belonged, none of this would have happened.
And yes luxon wants boot camps for youth offenders.
He says he has looked into the research from other countries overseas that have done it and the evidence is extremely convincing. He is being firm on his position.

Luxon can't possibly be unaware of the fact that the idiotic 'boot camps' have been a miserable failure & are more likely to contribute to people continuing on with committing crimes; brutality doesn't usually work & that is what they've largely been in the past.

So it looks rather as though National/ ACT are happy to use people who will have no choice to make the pretence that they're doing something about crime, while knowing full well it isn't effective & may well do more harm than good.

[C_T_Russell]

The fact is that if this shooter was in prison where he belonged, none of this would have happened.
And yes luxon wants boot camps for youth offenders.
He says he has looked into the research from other countries overseas that have done it and the evidence is extremely convincing. He is being firm on his position.

Luxon can't possibly be unaware of the fact that the idiotic 'boot camps' have been a miserable failure & are more likely to contribute to people continuing on with committing crimes; brutality doesn't usually work & that is what they've largely been in the past.

So it looks rather as though National/ ACT are happy to use people who will have no choice to make the pretence that they're doing something about crime, while knowing full well it isn't effective & may well do more harm than good.

Well I have huge respect for ACT when Seymour acknowledged that they got it wrong with their "soft" approach when supporting current legislation going through.
The fact is that it's worse right now with youth offending and Michael Hill stores shouldn't be experiencing weekly robberies.

[Lilith7]

Luxon can't possibly be unaware of the fact that the idiotic 'boot camps' have been a miserable failure & are more likely to contribute to people continuing on with committing crimes; brutality doesn't usually work & that is what they've largely been in the past.

So it looks rather as though National/ ACT are happy to use people who will have no choice to make the pretence that they're doing something about crime, while knowing full well it isn't effective & may well do more harm than good.

Well I have huge respect for ACT when Seymour acknowledged that they got it wrong with their "soft" approach when supporting current legislation going through.
The fact is that it's worse right now with youth offending and Michael Hill stores shouldn't be experiencing weekly robberies.

Seymour is an inexperienced politician who knows the value of attacking the usual subjects in order to gain votes; like many other MP's he simply doesn't care who is damaged in the process.

[Wainuiguy]

Another outstanding home detention decision:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/30...pp-android

Perhaps it is time Judges were elected rather than appointed so that these decisions actually cost them something.

And put back as it was deleted previously:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3...-detention

[king1]

Perhaps it is time Judges were elected rather than appointed so that these decisions actually cost them something.

that will introduce a whole new range of issues.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

A la the US of A you think?

Issues indeed.

---

Another outstanding home detention decision:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/30...pp-android

Perhaps it is time Judges were elected rather than appointed so that these decisions actually cost them something.

And put back as it was deleted previously:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3...-detention

Of course, we only hear about the ones that go wrong, never the ones that work out fine. Especially on stuff, the home of tragedy porn.

The 21st century version of the old Truth tabloid that was never used for wrapping fish'n chips because it might ruin the taste.