Written By: - Date published: 3:08 pm, December 2nd, 2008 - 68 comments
Categories: crime, prisons -
Tags: garth mcvicar, sensible sentencing trust
Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar’s analysis of prisons today:
“Under our present prison policy the inmates are basically running the prison”
Why does anyone take this man seriously?
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Why the hell is he being given space in a newspaper? He’s no more “qualified” than the next person to make these pronouncements.
Oh wait, in this instance I’m the next person and I’ve actually spent time in a prison. In that case, he knows comparatively **** all.
Certainly they’re not run as well as they should be, and staff are barely able to cope. They’re under incredible stress and most do an excellent job despite, rather than because of, the facilities they’re managing (while a large number have simply given up and become automatons).
And why is this? Well for one thing it’s because narrow minded one-note idiots with no clues on correctional systems keep insisting we have “sensible” sentences which see offenders who could actually repay their debt to society by doing something positive for the community instead being stuffed, in ever greater numbers and for ever-lengthening times, into our prisons.
Now, if only we could identify the idiots responsible for encouraging that trend through their increasing tantrums every time a sentence is handed out with which they disagree, we could refer them to Mr McVicar for a damn good thrashing…
McVicars the only drop kick who will speak out against such transgressions thanks to his fort knox protected house, all lovingly paid for by supporters of SST. Sounds similar to someone else who preaches….
Bring back the death penalty I say.
Once more than 10 maori are hung/drawn/quartered, Turia and Sharples might walk the talk instead of blabbering on about shit.
McVicar will then have nothing to talk about – after all SST is all about “hang em high” policies to anything that involves biblical crimes.
Sit back, and watch crime rate drop accordingly. Turia will blame neoliberal post colonialism as a reason for maori getting hung, while conveniently ignoring the history of tribal warfare.
Even reinstating it for 2 years would be enough of a disincentive to not murder/rape/pillage/plunder. Bearing in mind that 98% of criminals caught in this country have a rap sheet longer than my arm, and are the ones who committed such atrocities.
But who can blame maori. They’re simply acting out their post colonialism tribal aggression.
BTW: Im fully aware of the fact that maori is a noun, I just choose not to give them capital status. Just Capital Punishment.
I’m all for harsher sentances, providing they are for crimes that have a real victim.
I’m sure if we got rid of our silly cannabis laws, the prison population would shrink, and we would have more room to keep the real bad bastards locked away, rather than someone who gets caught with a spliff.
BTW: Im fully aware of the fact that maori is a noun, I just choose not to give them capital status. Just Capital Punishment.
say what???
What does it say about the general population who seem to agree with the McVicars of NZ?
“Why does anyone take this man seriously?”
Option A: journalists who’d rather cut and paste a press release than find a real story
Option B: editors who have an interest in promoting the rantings of Mr McVicar
“What does it say about the general population who seem to agree with the McVicars of NZ?”
that they’re being lead by the nose by an msm with very obscure journalistic standards.
I’m once again in agreement with MikeE. There’d be less people in prison if there weren’t so many pointless laws. We lock people away from society because they pose a risk to themselves. It’s patently absurd. Legalise it… all.
I’m addressing a conference on Restorative Justice next week (along with a whole lot of people with far more knowledge than I on the subject) and have been doing my level best to get an Aussie journo or two along. I’ve just got yet another “sorry, I’ve got better things to do” response. Yeah, like regurgitating press releases from the local equivalents of McVicar, for instance. *sigh*
Mike E, QtR: Instant fines for possession of small amounts of cannabis have been the policy in several Australian states for some time now. NSW has trialled a policy of issung Criminal Infringement Notices (on-the-spot fines) for minor offences such as offensive language, minor cases of common assault (pushing and shoving basically), obstructing traffic and first time shoplifting*.
This frees up police from paper work and helps unclog the courts and the offender doesn’t end up with a criminal record.
Predictably there’s an outcry as other states try to introduce a similar scheme, complaining we’re “going soft” on “crims”. *sigh*
* Only if it’s a first offence, the goods are worth less than $300 and the shopkeeper agrees.
People take him seriously because I think he had a family member that was a victim of a crime, and he was put through hell through the system and saw the system was set up to help the criminals and not the people who were victims.
Rex – We want it legalised. I don’t want to see some system of fines in place. It ought to be legal as should every other drug. One thing on that list: offensive language! I would hate to see the day you got a fine for offensive language. IMO there is no such fucking thing (libel is another matter). I don’t actually know what the laws are in New Zealand surrounding “offensive language” but I do recall being in a fairly inebriated state and telling a police officer using a few choice words what I thought of her profession and merely getting an indifferent response.
Wow you’re really showing your wisdom now. Great idea. Lets legalise heroine and cocaine and PI. Great thinking there QtR.
On behalf of every medical professional in NZ – QTR you are a dingbat !
We certainly do not want all drugs legalised in NZ – legal and illegal drugs cause more than enough problems already.
GC – I’ve always thought that and said so many times on this site. You may wish to disagree with the freedom of a person do with their own body what they wish, but it’s something I believe in. It’s also something MikeE coming from the opposite end of the economic/political spectrum as I agrees with. IMO P, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy,mescaline, LSD, BZP, PCP, DMT whatever it is if people want to take they shouldn’t be criminalised for it. You might find this site interest: Law enforcement against prohibition. It’s a more commonly held belief then you may think ginger.
PS – GC what’s wrong with a heroine.
HS – Go back to kiwiblog.
On behalf of every medical professional in NZ
How about you just speak for yourself HS, unless they had a vote and named you chief bloviator.
They’ve pretty much legalised heroin in Switzerland, had a referendum, about 65 percent in favour. Hard core junkies can get their fix of uncut smack at the pharmacy. Heaps fewer needles lying around in parks and I hear about a third of the junkies on the deal have since quit their ten year plus habit. Funny that.
The war on drugs has been a miserable failure, though it’s funded lot’s of narco wars and given the CIA and other such high minded individuals decent funding for deniable adventure with excellent blowback opportunities going forward. So if you’re into that sort of terror and bullet in the back of the head hijnks, it’s not a complete loss. And it mostly only happens to the not white people and third world failed staters so meh, eh?
I don’t think its a commonly held belief. A wee few perhaps but I don’t see many asking the argument for legalising all drugs. There is certainly opinion around cannabis that i think is legitimate. But when not a single political party or even a minority of people talk of legalisation of all drugs, you can hardly call it a common held belief.
Now that is your opinion so your certainly entitled to it but I think its a poor argument to bring criminal numbers down.
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I’m still wondering why Jasper has not been banned. That was the most disgustingly racist thing I’ve ever read here.
GC – I didn’t say it was a commonly held belief I said it was a more commonly held belief than you may think and linked to that site to help my case. You may be surprised ginger, for example Pen and Teller. Here’s the show rather than me arguing the point with you and taking this thread further off topic.
Actually the call has been to de-criminalise (can’t spell!) marijuanna, which is not the same as legalise. Might give police more important things to worry about?
Ginger, why do you think it’s a poor argument re criminality?
For the sake of argument let’s posit that we legalise the lot, regulate suppliers similar to alcohol etc, and have quality controls so that users know what they are buying etc.
Way I see it, beyond the obvious fact that users and dealers would no longer be criminals, you’d also eliminate all the crime surrounding the market. Competitors in the alcohol business don’t tend to murder each other. Retailers only rarely find that their new supplier has sold them coloured water and shot through to Sydney or Jo-berg with a quarter million in cash, requiring the time consuming and dangerous task of locating and extracting the specialised, expensive, and not very nice debt recovery services available. Similarly Liquorland doesn’t feel the need to employ enforcers to beat the shit of slow paying creditors. Alcoholics seem to be able to find their fix cheaply enough and reliably enough that they don’t need to steal up to grand a week in widescreen TV’s and XBOX360′s to keep the DT’s at bay. There wouldn’t be millions locally and trillions globally floating around needing laundry services and payoffs to everyone from border officials and politicians to police, judges, bankers, lawyers and god knows who else. (disclaimer/sidetrack deflection – I’m not saying that outright corruption is a big problem in NZ, but I wouldn’t say it doesn’t exist, and those millions do get laundered somewhere).
Narcotics are estimated to be, I understand, right up there with oil and guns as the most traded things on the planet. The war on drugs just transfers all that cash to bad, bad men.
Do you disagree? What would you suggest we do to start ‘winning the war on drugs’, if you think that is possible?
Garth McVicar wouldn’t know, and neither would the ‘just say no’ crowd. They’re big criminal narco’s bff. Pump up the margins and pass the cut merchandise baby.
There has to be a better way to regulate than this surely? IMO etc.
GC – I haven’t been banned because while I was busy snorting coke, smoking marijuana and cooking P, I must have dazed off into a dreamland where I wished that my husband, neice, nephew, sister in law, mother in law and several cousins would all be goneburger.
Somehow my rant was only taken seriously by you. Are you one of the fawning masses who drool over McVicars every word too?
Tane – apologies if it came out as being moderately serious and not in the same style as a McVicar rant… I must have been slightly more coherent.
QtR – Fully agree. Legalise all dugs. Government gets revenue, stigma goes away, it’s no longer a “cool” drug to do as there’s no element in getting caught. Most drug takers only do it for the thrill.
Canberras decriminalisation has led to a massive drop in the number of people with MaryJane in that state alone.
Funny. Captcha is Competent There.Who is?
PB,
The argument you make is a very good one. It makes sense on the pragmatic level you pitch it to. Yet I cannot help but still have reservations.
Where an act has a direct social dimension (eg murder or theft), we seem to have no problem enacting and enforcing laws against it.
By contrast where the direct victim of an act is also the perpetrator of it (eg drug use) enforcement becomes far more problematic. There is no doubt that drug abuse (and I include alcohol) carries an enormous indirect cost to society as a whole.
Let me try these numbers. Crime in NZ is estimated to cost about $8-10b pa. About 70% of that can be directly linked with alcohol abuse. Something like 30% of all accidents and medical costs are probably related to it, and I would suggest that lost workplace productivity and opportunities probably amount to at least 5% of GDP. Add all those up and alcohol abuse alone probably costs this country close to $20b pa. (Not to mention all the uncountable human misery. And if only we could invoice LiquorKing for this cost we might be able to afford some real tax cuts.)
We seem to happily accept the staggering social cost of alcohol abuse, while deploring (as we should) acts like murder, rape and child abuse that probably have a somewhat lessor total impact on society.
What drives this distinction? Why is it that we find crimes like murder relatively easy to reach a social consensus about (leaving aside the question of capital punishment for the moment), but twist ourselves in moral and intellectual knots over drug abuse?
Jasper:
That’s the downside of satire; sometimes it’s impossible to distinguish from reality.
I can’t see how legitimising the use of dangerous drugs as a good thing. In a commercial content arguably the drugs would be safer but they’re still dangerous and very open to abuse. That is one concern. Secondly, we know that by lowering the age of alcohol use there has been an increase in young people drinking and the health costs and criminal activity attached to that law change has increased. We know being liberal about alcohol laws means poorer areas see huge growth in liquor stores etc. In the legalisation of all drugs that same increase would be seen. And who would suffer more than others? Why the very people that are Labour’s core voters. They constantly vote Labour and the left That surely is a concern? Because you legalise drugs and the biggest increase would be the South Aucklands, the Aranuis of Christchurch etc etc.
Likewise, in legalising drugs you will see crime increase. The changes in liquor laws have seen more and more criminal offences by drunk people. That would also extend to drug users. You don’t think places that sell drugs won’t be targeted by criminals? I beg to differ. You’d also see a rapid rise in health costs as more and more people use drugs. See I don’t think legalising drugs will make less people use them I would think there would be a considerable increase in drug usage and there would thus, be an increase in health costs and criminal costs.
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Jasper I really don’t care if you were joking or not.I just saw what you wrote as racist, non-funny and offensive. I like some of what Garth McVicar has to say and I believe some of the things he does is in the interest for New Zealand and something that has a general concensus. I also think he goes way too far and often ignores white collar crime.
QtR: I agree fines are just a bloody nonsense for possession, and have nil value as a deterrent (which is presumably why they exist). I was just pointing out that even a small step in the right direction gets decried.
I also agree with you re legalising it all, for precisely the reasons so eloquently enumerated by Pascal’s bookie above.
Higher Standard: normally you talk sense, but before you start speaking for the entire medical profession have a word with some of your colleagues. I’d recommend starting with Andrew Byrne, an incredibly compassionate GP who’s become a specialist in addiction treatment. He’s seen the misery addiction can bring and is certainly no proponent of the “let’s legalise it so we can all party” POV (which I detect a slight whiff of from QtR… my apologies if I’ve read you wrong).
But Andrew and others who’ve worked with addicts (including, in a small way, myself) know full well that the intervention of some Plod with a charge sheet has never done anyone an ounce (pardon the pun) of good.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see any drug (including alcohol) abused. But if GPs are still hanging their hat on prohibition as a prophylactic, then they need to do some professional development, urgently.
Red – But what is it you advocate – that we should prohibit alcohol? It seems to me that you’re the one tying yourself up in a moral knot. I’m certainly not in any. The point of our argument is that prohibition has been an absolute failure. We saw so plainly what a failure alcohol prohibition was in America (and interestingly enough in Russia) and I think it’s plainly obvious the immense failure of the global war on drugs fought since the early seventies. Drugs are easier to access and cheaper in the U.S. now than before the war began and I think it would be comparable worldwide. Calling for an end to prohibition is not in any way advocating drug use. Humans are always going to look to use psychoactives it’s just a plain fact of life. You can’t suppress it anymore than you can suppress sex.
Ginger – You give me one example where prohbition has actually led to a significant decrease in the rates of use. Then you’re argument will have some merit, but otherwise it doesn’t and I know of no instance where it has. I don’t think the argument that lots of people will start taking drugs if it was legal and crime would increase bears up to any scrutiny. Alcohol prohibition did nothing to use and crime increased as Al Capone and the like went on murdering sprees. The wiki article quotes the New York county lawyers association thusly:With aid of these distinctions, we see that present drug policy appears to contribute to the increase of violence in our communities. It does so by permitting and indeed, causing the drug trade to remain a lucrative source of economic opportunity for street dealers, drug kingpins and all those willing to engage in the often violent, illicit, black market trade.
Meanwhile, the effect of present policy serves to stigmatize and marginalize drug users, thereby inhibiting and undermining the efforts of many such individuals to remain or become productive, gainfully employed members of society. Furthermore, current policy has not only failed to provide adequate access to treatment for substance abuse, it has, in many ways, rendered the obtaining of such treatment, and of other medical services, more difficult and even dangerous to pursue. ‘
Rex – I’m not adverse to little smoke here and there, but I’m no party animal.
Give me evidence that legalising drugs somehow benefits society. Any legitimation of drug use will have problems and that you can’t see that I find dumbfounding.
Also I never actually said the prohibition of drugs cuts usage but I believe it has to be better than legitimising and legalising dangerous drugs.
As for your arguments about alcohol QtR yes making alcohol prohibited saw an increase in gangs etc but one thing you can’t deny. That the opening up and acceptance of alcohol and new liberal laws around alcohol sales etc. Has caused social issues, increases in admissions to hospitals etc and increases in crime.
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Are our current laws in terms of illegal drugs wrong? Possibly. But I don’t favour decriminalising anything other than cannabis and I frankly do not see the benefits of making current illegal drugs legal.
Personally I’m very liberal socially, and happy for people to do whatever they like as long as it doesnt have a real negative impact on the rights of others. But it is funny to see alcohol used as a justification for the legalisation of other drugs. We clearly need more of the problems that alcohol provides, though on the other hand prohibition is a clearly worse solution.
The damage caused to our society by alcohol abuse is far more widespread and expensive than any other drug – apologies for that sweeping statement to any individuals on the receiving end of any drug related trauma.
The solution is simple but unpalatable to most of our society. Decriminalise drugs, supply them legally, tax the hell out them, provide rehab services and have draconian penalties for possessors of unlicenced narcotics. Might as well raise some tax revenue from an inelastic commodity – it may help pay for the lost productivity, increased medical costs etc society as a whole incurs. And run the same sort of campaign against, dope, party pills, P etc that we now run against cigarettes.
Why are cigarettes unacceptable but dope, party pills aren’t? (Always amuses me when fussy, greenie, “natural is good” types take party pills – there’s consistency for you.) Cant understand the logic disconnect there. Oh, and minimum sentence of (pick a number greater than 1) years for anyone driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. I don’t want a doped up idiot running over my kids as they walk to school. Though if said doped up idiot stays in his bedroom eating pizza I don’t really care.
Garth McVictim is an absolute joke. My mind often wanders when I’m stuck on menial tasks at work, and I was thinking today about he really aught to fess up that the policies he advocates have been shown to increase crime, he really aught to be honest to people that hes willing to live in a more dangerous society, in return for getting a bit of revenge.
The others are right in identifying a significant racist element in his work, when Jack Nicholas was shot, in McVictims general area, that was a big turning point for the SST, they really used it to pump up their profile. This was all kind of based around the expectation \ assumption that the person who shot him would be a Maori growing a crop of dope on his land. Bit of a shock to McVictim when I turned out to be a white fella, but that’s the way the chips fall.
The other thing about drug prohibition that I don’t think has been covered here is the example of Vancouver’s safe injection site. Similar too other programs, clean gear provided, medical supervision ect (but drugs not supplied like some other places). Two benefits not really mentioned that have been seen in the Vancouver set up is it tends to have all the users in the near by area, while this is at the expense of that area, things are a lot better in the rest of the city for it.
It also takes drug use out of the shadows and provides much better access for medical and psychological treatment for the users. Many of which their drug use has gone well beyond about using or pleasure from a drug, its just pure addiction and dependence. The safe injection sites result in a much higher rate of getting people clean.
Red, I’m not suggesting that drug use is without cost. Why we tie ourselves in knots? I don’t know. But what is undeniable is that for a large number of humans, in pretty much any time and place you care to mention, ‘recreational’ drug use has been important to them, socially, spiritually and emotionally. I don’t think that is going to change. At present society offers only one legal drug. One that when abused makes people violent and dangerous. Much more so than many of the other drugs that are illegal. Ask cops about whether they feel safer visiting dance parties or pubs after 4AM. And where they make more arrests. P is a menace, it’s also a crap drug that’s easy to make and powerful. Black market mana.
gc
“legitimisation” is a red herring. People that want to take drugs, and that is a lot of people BTW, take them now. They are very widely available, through criminals who will sell them to anyone, restricted only by their personal sense of who they want to sell them to. These are the only people users can buy them off, they would far rather get better quality safer product at licensed dealers.
Most drug users manage fine. Alcohol is one of the most damaging personally and socially IMO, yet the biggest dealers of that drug are widely respected pillars of the community.
Think Douglas Myers, what is the difference between him and the guy selling Ecstasy tablets? Answer: The guy selling e’s is a criminal with fewer deaths on his hands (as a result of the product).
What we need to do is minimise the social harm done by drugs. Most of that harm is due to the criminality of the enterprise, and the fact that alcohol is legal. It still cracks me up that at events like the Gathering you used to get around ten thousand people camping out for 3 days, alcohol prohibited, a low police presence and trained folks on hand to look out for problems. Hardly a single problem with violence or non drug crime despite 95 percent of the punters being out of their gourds as much as they liked on pot, e, mushrooms, lsd etc. I guarantee if alcohol was involved there’d have been a lot more problems and a lot less fun. Down the road in Nelson there’d be a couple of hundred piss heads get together for one night at new years eve,- riots, dozens of arrests heaps of property damage etc and so on.
Given the choice, lots of the people that at the moment cause problems due to alcohol, (young males) would be using drugs that are less aggro, and don’t mess with your head in the same way that alcohol does.
One question:
Does anyone think the clever people at the big pharma companies would not be able to develop safer recreational drugs than those we use now, if the stigma was removed from the idea that using drugs to have fun is ‘wrong’ ?
Any rational reasons why that isn’t happening?
People get nervous about the idea of legalised drugs. Given the problems illegal drugs cause I find that ridiculous.
Ginger – I also see the issue as a wider issue than the pragmatic side, the social cost, the economic cost, etc of the drug war, I see it as a moral one in that I don’t think the government ought to control what we put into our own bodies. I think that is a basic point of difference between our views that is irreconcilable. Yes you are dumbfounding GC. The pragmatic side is obvious and you really can’t argue it, you don’t even bother. You yourself said you didn’t say that prohibition of drugs cuts usage. So what’s the point in prohibition then? Just an incredibly bizarre and expensive game. I think the best quote is from someone on the National research council in the U.S: “the drug war has no interest in its own results.” In countries with relatively liberal approach to drugs such as the Netherlands there is actually less drug use than other nations with harsher approach to drugs. Answer me this if cocaine was legalised tommorrow would you suddenly start snorting cocaine? I think your answer would be no and I think that answer is the same for most people. The argument that usage would actually increase with legalisation is just plain wrong. Drugs are already readily available and easy enough to acquire the people that want to take drugs do take drugs prohibtion or no prohibition. Also I believe that harm reduction can be much better achieved if the people we are trying to treat are not criminalised and the money saved on law enforcement and mass imprisonment was spent on healthcare and education. Your side of the argument is not only untenable from a moral perspective it’s untenable from a pragmatic perspective. Another interesting quote from that article, since I know you didn’t bother to read it. Martin Friedman said: “See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That’s literally true.’
Also answer me this ginger Do you drink alcohol, smoke tobacco or drink coffee? If the answer is yes then you are a drug user. Did you know that when the U.S drew up its list of drugs to make illegal on such and such’s law (I can’t remeber the name), violating their own constitution, coffee was short listed, we’re just lucky that it wasn’t arbitrarily made illegal like so many other drugs, as the rest of the world followed America’s lead.
Just because he was a victim of crime doesn’t mean he’s an authority on prisons I’m afraid.
gingercrush asks:
The vast – and I do mean vast – numbers of people who wouldn’t have been burgled, robbed at knife / gun / syringe point, mugged, car jacked, stood over for money and just plain stolen from (thought that’s mainly partners, friends and family, specially mums and dads – it’s the public who get the really nasty stuff committed upon them) by a junkie who needs to spend hundreds of dollars a day on a drug when decriminalising it would lower the price and make it affordable.
The kids of junkies who might get fed if mummy and / or daddy could afford a fix and food.
The medical staff, spcially at hospital A&Es, who wouldn’t have to deal with violent addicts withdrawing and demanding drugs they’re not legally allowed to prescribe and could get on with treating people who needed help (or, sadly, drunks who’d had too much and glassed one another, but that’s another story).
The cops who wouldn’t have 80% of their time taken up with the above.
It’s nigh on impossible to extract reliable drug-related crime data from the overall statistics – especially crimes not involving drugs, but committed to fund their purchase, because no one really collects it.
But spend a while in the “justice” system in any capacity at all, from judge to crim, and you’ll soon see the enormity of the crime committed to purchase illegal substances. Crime that would virtually vanish overnight if those substances were decriminalised and affordable.
It’s like Frank Gallgher says in the opening title sequence of the brilliant Shameless; “Make poverty history: cheaper drugs now”
To which I’d add “And make most crime history too”.
Killinginthenameof:
Misprint, or confession?
ginger- the argument (interestingly, both sides argue from facts, not ideology) that we should decriminalise is based on the assumption that certain types of drugs are harmless enough that the black market that supplies them, and other trappings of criminalisation, such as ignoring drug addiction as a health problem both mental and physical, exceed the harm of simply letting people have the drug.
Most people with any slant on drug decriminalisation believe that cannabis is probably the best candidate, and certainly worth a try given the drug-related crime statistics in the only country that has to any degree decriminalised it. (Most of the incidents are foreigners who came to the country specifically to smoke, which seems to be evidence for decriminalisation.)
Would you agree for instance that removing penalties for possession only is likely to still allow police to go after people who really are abusing the system- like growers and dealers- without having to bust people for choosing to endanger people for their own health?
QTR
“I see it as a moral one in that I don’t think the government ought to control what we put into our own bodies”
And who’s responsibility is it for paying and cleaning up the mess resulting from what people put in their bodies ?
QTR your comments are the same sort of drive I used to spout decades ago before I grew up.
Rex
“The medical staff, spcially at hospital A&Es, who wouldn’t have to deal with violent addicts withdrawing and demanding drugs they’re not legally allowed to prescribe and could get on with treating people who needed help (or, sadly, drunks who’d had too much and glassed one another, but that’s another story).”
Rex addicts withdrawing and demanding drugs is more of a problem at secondary care level, the majority of drug/addiction problems in A&E is self harm or harm to others caused by the patients abuse of drugs (prescription and non prescription, legal and illegal)
For secondary care read primary care (GPs)