08-02-2022, 10:52 AM
"Don’t we all deal with life the way we do our military service? Doing what we can, while we wait either to be demobbed or do battle? Some will clean up the barrack-room, others will skive off, or spend their time playing cards, or trafficking, or plotting something. Officers command, soldiers obey, but no one’s fooled by this comedy behind closed doors: one day, you’ll have to go out & die, officers & soldiers alike, the morons along with the crafty ones who smuggle toilet paper or deal in cigarettes on the black market."
The elegance of the hedgehog, Muriel Barberry.
"From the discomfort of truth there is only one refuge & that is ignorance. I do not need to be comfortable & I will not take refuge. I demand to know."
Thirteen, Richard K Morgan.
"A case of law is a chess game for those who make their living at it, & a great sorrow for those who get caught up in its web."
Sharyn McCrumb. The ballad of Tom Dooley
"We cannot change the reality of the life offenders face, but we can begin to recognise the realities of the lives they have led, & promote changes that will provoke healing instead of rage.
As I understand it, under-floor heating has been installed in at least one of the new prisons – the one in Otago – the decision having been made that given the average winter in that area, under-floor heating was the cheapest & most efficient option. But where in the media debate about the idea of under-floor heating was the additional information that the temperature at which the heating was set is around 6 degrees – just enough to meet the UN standard & to stop ice forming on the floors?
The arena of female inmate management has the potential to assist the Department greatly in that regard – a small population within which the effects of changes made & risks taken can be assessed efficiently & effectively. In time this will show the way forward for the larger male inmate population.
It is easy when operating in the world of prisons & crime, & when faced daily with the potential that seems to exist for humans beings to hurt one another, to become focused on the negativity of the environment, the need to punish, to remind those who find their way to prison of their worthlessness. If the communities of NZ are to find a way out of the current situation of spiralling crime rates & increased societal violence, however, the Department must be prepared to help them review their perceptions of who are in our prisons & what they need to ensure they do not return a second time.
I have come to understand & be horrified by the degree to which, completely aside from the bad parenting chant that echoes across NZ every time another child dies a violent death at the hands of someone who is supposed to love & protect them, so much of the damage done in the lives of at-risk children is done by our bureaucracy & our systems – systems that purport to have the welfare of the child at heart.
Children need, on occasion, to be removed from their family for their ongoing safety & wellbeing, but it is what happens next that I take issue with – the ongoing harm done by the child protection system in the cases I have been involved in."
The power of mothers, Celia Lashlie
The elegance of the hedgehog, Muriel Barberry.
"From the discomfort of truth there is only one refuge & that is ignorance. I do not need to be comfortable & I will not take refuge. I demand to know."
Thirteen, Richard K Morgan.
"A case of law is a chess game for those who make their living at it, & a great sorrow for those who get caught up in its web."
Sharyn McCrumb. The ballad of Tom Dooley
"We cannot change the reality of the life offenders face, but we can begin to recognise the realities of the lives they have led, & promote changes that will provoke healing instead of rage.
As I understand it, under-floor heating has been installed in at least one of the new prisons – the one in Otago – the decision having been made that given the average winter in that area, under-floor heating was the cheapest & most efficient option. But where in the media debate about the idea of under-floor heating was the additional information that the temperature at which the heating was set is around 6 degrees – just enough to meet the UN standard & to stop ice forming on the floors?
The arena of female inmate management has the potential to assist the Department greatly in that regard – a small population within which the effects of changes made & risks taken can be assessed efficiently & effectively. In time this will show the way forward for the larger male inmate population.
It is easy when operating in the world of prisons & crime, & when faced daily with the potential that seems to exist for humans beings to hurt one another, to become focused on the negativity of the environment, the need to punish, to remind those who find their way to prison of their worthlessness. If the communities of NZ are to find a way out of the current situation of spiralling crime rates & increased societal violence, however, the Department must be prepared to help them review their perceptions of who are in our prisons & what they need to ensure they do not return a second time.
I have come to understand & be horrified by the degree to which, completely aside from the bad parenting chant that echoes across NZ every time another child dies a violent death at the hands of someone who is supposed to love & protect them, so much of the damage done in the lives of at-risk children is done by our bureaucracy & our systems – systems that purport to have the welfare of the child at heart.
Children need, on occasion, to be removed from their family for their ongoing safety & wellbeing, but it is what happens next that I take issue with – the ongoing harm done by the child protection system in the cases I have been involved in."
The power of mothers, Celia Lashlie
in order to be old & wise, you must first be young & stupid. (I'm still working on that.)