New Zealand has only two half way houses funded by Corrections – each of them has 11 beds. In other words thats a grand total of 22 beds for around 9,000 inmates coming out of prison each year. No wonder we have such a high rate of recidivism.

Also 90% of prison inmates in NZ have alcohol and drug problems. Corrections only provides programmes to ‘treat’ about 5% of them…no wonder people think rehabilitation doesn’t work – we don’t really do any.

I agree opening the gates and allowing them to cause havoc is what we do now but that is not because of a genuine attempt at rehabilitation in its various forms but because of an absence of commitment to it.

Until politicians start being honest with the public about what is proven to work and what isn’t, the public wont accept that genuine tried and tested rehabilitation programmes will actually create safer communities than the retribution based system we have now…

on the 2nd on – yes, valid points tracey. valid. i extend that in agreeance by saying if; consequences exist irrespective of crimes of passion or melicious intent – in both cases, over time, society gains from a higher state of self-consiousness.

without the same, you may as well open the prison gates, let em out and allow them to cause havoc. which, is actually what we have said they can do and they do do now.

think about the consequences before acting
think they will get caught

many murders, for example, are as a result of angry flare up, “Passion” and spur of the moment over reaction to something, no time or thought given to consequences.

You may be right with the VERY serious end of the criminality scale. However genuine rehabilitation programmes are few and far between.

Recidivism is a major problem and there are programmes which have been shown to reduce recidivism by as much as 25%. That is something surely, in a society which simply cannot afford to keep criminals imprisoned until they die.

I dispute your suggestion (If I read it correctly) that rehabilitation will never work. One problem is that “law and order” is such a populist button with political parties that they keep ramping up the idea we are all unsafe and then tell ius tougher sentences are the only way to make us safer even when they know that there is little of no support in studies or reality for that position.

NZers are being duped all the time by Labour and National in this area.

more people die annually fro work related accidents than are murdered… funny they dont make the news and funny people dont feel unsafe going to work.

The group around rethinking punishment has produced some good focus and papers int his idea, attended by MPs from all parties yet we get the same old same old.

http://www.rethinking.org.nz/publications%20about.htm