D&A in jail works exactly like this if you are on the methadone programme. If you have a sentence long enough (and it’s not very long) you are bumped off your ‘done…stepped down and off very fast by halving the dose every day. No counselling, no support, no secondary drugs to assist with the withdrawal. Just cold turkey. Hardly ‘treatment’.

I’d guess, although I don’t know, that alcohol and other drug addiction ‘treatments’ are the same.

In other words, an absolutely pointless and cruel add on to a custodial sentence if you are an addict that does not lead to long term controlled use or abstinence.

Where it was obviously a major factor I remember people being referred for drug & alchohol treatment.

Skill or trade training that is something that probably should be looked at rather than just community work. There was a story a month or so ago about Hawkins Construction offering work to about 12 young offenders in Northcote with reasonably good results.

In relation to youth offenders it will also be interesting to see how the Te Hurihanga programme works out.

Your 1 in 10 stat is wrong though. One ‘crime’ is usually a good dozen or so offences.

Jack a car, speed around a bit and get snapped: one person’s car stolen.

Auto theft.
Speeding.
Dangerous driving.
Posession of drug utensils.
Posession of a class ‘c’ druns.
Failing to stop.
Resisting arrest.
Breaching Bail conditions.
And so on.

Probably more like 1 in 50. And no, it’s not “good” Sean, just not the unprecedented disaster some would have you believe.

Which bears, at best, a very questionable semblance to reality. The gauge has to be your actual experience and not your virtual experience as constructed by the news media amongst others. Otherwise your perception will be wrong because the news et al love to exaggerate the sensational and would have you believe there’s a thug on every corner, a stabber in every street and a shooter in every doorway.

Ben R.

“It may be stupid, but it seems to reduce crime rates”

So would limb amputation, summary execution and deportation.

“They tend to have long histories & have previously served community service”

And were they offered any skill/ trade training? Rehabilitation? Any doors opened that may have led to a meaningful and sustainable change in lifestyle/habits or perceptions? Aided in developing a sense of self empowerment? I doubt it. Nothing much beyond ‘That was bad. Do you recognise good from bad now? Good. Good-bye and good luck.’ would be my guess.

It may be stupid, but it seems to reduce crime rates.

It’s not as though people get thrown in jail lightly. The offending has to be serious and generally the people who receive custodial sentences are not first time offenders. They tend to have long histories & have previously served community service.

“I don’t ever feel unsafe here. I haven’t been a victim of crime in over a decade.”

That’s my point. We are not under siege…our real life experience tells us so. But the media would have us believe that something random and nasty is just around the next corner. And it ‘works’ to an ever increasing degree.

When we are told that bad shit is rampant often enough then it follows that increasing numbers of people begin to become hesitant… in many little ways…maybe they begin to question whether to take the shortcut down the alley as opposed to going the long way (for a moment they think the worst); or find that they think about crossing the road to avoid a group of kids/teens; or up their pace a little because of those loud voices…and so it goes.

Eventually, the initial reaction to a stranger or a group of strangers is more defensive and less open. Kind of like the old US films where an alien lands and the first reaction is to call in the tanks and point guns at their heads until they prove themselves ‘safe’, rather than just wandering up and saying hello.

I think the family violence problem is symptomatic of the violence done to the family by the money traders. There is nothing like having your roof ripped off to bring out the violence.

Its good that family violence is being outed and reported, but when are the real perpetrators going to be outed and reported?

Oh I forgot, its happening as we see the financiers begging for their lives.