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Locked up | Sep 07, 2004 11:46
Our prisons are full and frontline police are having to act as jailers. It appears that the four new prisons we're currently building will provide insufficient capacity. Well, that's what you get when you alter the system so as to lock up even more people.
Our incarceration rate, thanks to the major parties' tough-on-crime pissing contest, is up 16.5% since 2002. Under the Act-National policy, it would jump even more sharply.
Inevitably, Stephen Franks was on the radio this morning being disingenuous; claiming that New York was a shining example of how, if you throw more people in jail, eventually you'd be able to put fewer people in jail. This is nonsense. Over the time when New York's crime rate so drastically dropped, under Giuliani, its prison population did not increase, it fell. It was about active policing, not filling the jails:
The Institute drew a specific comparison between Texas and New York, the state closest in size to Texas. During the 1990s, Texas added more prisoners to its prison system (+98,081) than New York's entire prison population (73,233) by some 24,848 prisoners.
This means that the number of prisoners that Texas added during the 1990s was 34% higher than New York's entire prison population. While Texas had the fastest growing prison system in the country during the 1990s, New York had the third slowest growing prison population in the US.
Overall, during the 1990s, Texas added five times as many prisoners as New York did (18,001).
Yet since 1995, the study found that New York's decline in crime was four times greater than Texas' decline in crime. Texas' current incarceration rate (1,035 per 100,000) is 80% higher than New York's (574 per 100,000), yet Texas' crime rate (5,111 per 100,000) is 30% higher than New York's (3,588 per 100,000). In 1998, Texas' murder rate was 25% higher than New York State's rate.
Still, it appears it's not all bad at the level of the courts. My lawyer friend works with the Sentencing Act on a daily basis and he says it's actually a pretty good piece of legislation.
Meanwhile, former police sergeant Nigel Hendrikse, the victim of one of the four inmates awarded punitive damages as a consequence of abuse and beatings they suffered at Hawkes Bay's Mangaroa Prison is unhappy about the court's decision. This is perfectly understandable from his point of view, but I'm with No Right Turn on this one: if you don't want to have to make embarrassing payments to repugnant criminals, you don't allow abuse in your prisons. Phil Goff, I suspect, understands this perfectly well - and his angry response was just pre-emptive political theatre: get your outrage in ahead of your opponents and they have nothing left to say.
Alison Annan in the headlines again, this time mounting legal action to get back the job she appeared to have resigned from. Like I said, Christine Rankin Syndrome …
Busy day of airstrikes and ambushes on Today in Iraq. It also links to a story about a report on prospects for Iraq from the Royal Institute of International Affairs in Britain:
Worst-case scenario: Nothing can be done to avert bloody feuding among the Kurdish, Shia and Sunni factions, leading to fragmentation, chaos and civil war, accelerating widespread instability throughout the region.
But before that grim assessment is dismissed as more of the same from the nattering nabobs of negativism, check out the institute's best-case scenario: The Bush Doctrine, which virtually guaranteed the creation of a full-fledged democracy in Iraq friendly to the West, is hopelessly naive. The most the United States and its allies can hope for is a "muddle-through" scenario in which enormous amounts of money and military might are expended just to keep the country from disintegrating.
FightingTalk's Patrick Crewdson blogs a tartly satirical column about Destiny Church that he originally wrote for AUT journalism school paper, Te Waha Nui - but which was rejected for being too controversial or something. Really?
On the same site, Lydon Hood rips into the Dom Post's daft and deceitful 'Are Liberals Fascists?' story.
This Modern World's Tom Tomorrow has an alarming personal account of being arrested and locked up in the course of benign and legitimate protest in New York City last week. WTF is happening to that country? Who is giving the orders? I do find it bleakly humorous that round these parts various right-wing loudmouths are thrashing around claiming that Brian Tamaki (whose right to peaceful public protest was never in danger) is being oppressed when this sort of thing goes on in the Land of the Free.
And, finally, from the America I love, Macworld talks to an Apple exec about the hardware strategy in the new iMac G5. I'm in a priority queue for mine …
The Innocents | Sep 06, 2004 10:48
The Beslan massacre has unfolded before all our eyes, and we have all thought "how could they kill children like this?" It was ghastly. But what do we then think about the fact that, according to Genocide Watch, Russian forces have slaughtered 50,000 Chechens, many of whom, even though they weren't on global television, were someone's children too?
Genocide Watch puts Chechnya at Stage 7 out of 8 stages of genocide - "extermination". Stage 8 is "denial". Already, commentators are lining up to declare that Russia's bloody experience will bolster the Republican campaign's emphasis on the "War on Terror". Putin has, conveniently declared that "We showed weakness, and the weak are beaten."
The problem is that this isn't millennial, motiveless violence; it is a new phase in a nationalistic bloodbath. Further, it (and, probably, the recent airliner attacks) follows Russia's brutal response to the 2002 hostage-taking in a Moscow theatre (where all but one of the victims were killed not by the Chechen hostage-takers but by the opiate gases fed into the theatre by the Russian military). It's hard not to wonder how much less "weak" Putin could get.
The Seattle Times has more background on what an advisor to Putin's predecessor Boris Yeltsin once envisaged as "a small, victorious war" and Adrian Humm has kindly drawn my attention to Chechnyawar.com, which looks to have days' worth of links and further reading.
The reported presence among the terrorist corpses at Beslan of not only Chechens but Khazaks and other Central Asian nationals is extremely troubling. The states in the region are a geopolitical battleground not only for the Russians, but for the Americans.
Donald Rumsfeld has, by his own admission, spent much of his time this year in the region, and announced after a meeting with Uzbekistan's lunatic dictator Islam Karimov that he looked forward "to strengthening political and economic relationships between the countries" - even though he must surely have known that the US State Department was only days away from announcing the suspension of economic aid to the state, citing human rights abuses and no progress towards democracy. Uzbekistan also has its own Islamic terrorism problem, but some serious commentators believe that Karimov himself has orchestrated at least some of the attacks to play up the threat.
Central Asia certainly has its security problems, but it's hard to say whether the Americans' plan to move more troops into the region (think oil and pipelines as well as security) will ease those or simply create more tension - and more opportunities for core Islamic terrorists. I guess we'll find out, but it doesn't look good.
I now have a copy of the Northern Advocate's offer of political advertorial in its Local Body Elections Feature, to be published on September 15. It reads in part:
Dear Sir/Madam
Please find attach information about The Northern Advocate Local Body Election feature.
This is a great opportunity to profile yourself. You receive FREE editorial when you confirm your advert size.
I'm sorry, but this is wrong - although I'm not suggesting, as someone from another paper thought, that it's APN policy. Clearly, it isn't - and it shouldn't be the Northern Advocate's policy either.
Anyway, someone signing themselves as John Banks got in touch with this message:
Hi Russell
I have a blog
You can find it at www.johnbanksformayor.com
And guess what? He does! Although it's officially called a Campaign Diary. The transcript of Holmes from his Newstalk ZB show that it contains is frankly mind-boggling.
Also, Graeme Easte responds to another bitchy crack by Aaron Bhatnagar, this time about Dick Hubbard:
Aaron Bhatnagar's Blog site includes a report dated 5/9/04 on Dick Hubbard's attendance at the last Auckland City Council meeting on 26th August.
Aaron was not present but I was, sitting directly behind Dick and Catherine Hawley who are referred to in the A. B. Blog. Dick is alleged by Aaron to have blurted out something like "I don't know if I could handle this ..."
This is utterly untrue (i.e. an invention). Supposedly this was said within earshot of several senior council people - well all the senior staff were on the opposite side of the chamber, and the closest councillors (Welsh, Storer and Sefuiva) were 2 metres away and unable to hear anything that he may have whispered to himself or Catherine. I am a long time attender at Council meetings (unlike A.B.) and have seen similar "reports" in the past which (because of their content) can only have originated with politicians with a personal axe to grind.
Graeme Easte
Deputy Chair, Western Bays Community Board
And finally, very big ups to SJD for a wonderful show at the King's Arms on Friday night. I saw him/them play the same venue a few weeks ago, and thought that they hadn't quite got to grips with playing the music live. They certainly have now. That was good.
Going local | Sep 03, 2004 10:27
It seems that this blog has crept - or possibly stomped - into the consciousness of a number of candidates for the local body elections. The mayoral commentaries are still getting hits, and several candidates have seen fit to email me with comments.
This is good: blogging and municipal elections are a good fit - and there's actually something very appealing about the fact that, if he so chooses, some guy in Khazakstan can read Damian's commentary on the mayoral hopefuls and feel that he knows a little about us.
And apart from anything else, we're not taking cash for comments. The same perhaps can't be said for Whangarei's North Advocate, which, I am told, has sent an email to candidates offering free editorial space to candidates who purchase advertising. Good grief.
Also, excommunicated CitRat Troy Churton - who committed the mortal sin of publicly saying that the Eastern Corridor plan doesn't make sense - sent me a lengthy email explaining in some detail why it doesn't make sense.
Churton is the present chair of the Hobson Community Board, and sat on the Eastern Corridor Steering Group. He says his views draw on "many years of professional experience from my quasi-judicial roles and legal training, applying objectivity and a rational approach to the kilograms of evidence and consultancy that has been presented to me … and I have formed very rational conclusions about that beyond mere policy or emotion."
Amongst his criticisms are that claims that the road won't greatly worsen CBD traffic congestion because only 8% of cars using the highway will travel to the CBD are "misleading", because the figure only refers to cars that use the motorway for its entire length, from deepest Manukau.
The truth is that over 40% of cars projected to use the highway will look to egress at the CBD as a destination, and a further 40% want to connect to the Northwestern or North Shore, thus through the CBD again.
The latest plan, remember, includes no direct linkage to either the Northwestern motorway or the Shore.
The evidence shows that cars and road traffic will therefore be forced not only into a reduced lane system across Purewa and Hobson Bays, but be faced with numerous signals towards Mechanics Bay and no clear linkages into Stanley Street, and certainly none to the North Shore. On the balance of probabilities test alone, it is very foreseeable that a road across Hobson will be mainly slow moving duplication of congestion already experienced elsewhere.
I think this is a very good point. Auckland's most severe congestion is in the CBD and on its fringe - hence the work in Grafton Gully and on widening at "Spaghetti Junction". Hands up who wants to make that worse?
Churton also believes, on the basis of the Opus Consultancy report projection that the road would hit capacity (about 40,000 cars a day) in 2021, even a 10-year return on investment of a billion dollars (assuming it's completed in 2010) would still fail to meet Transit NZ's cost-benefit benchmark. The money would be better spent elsewhere.
Also:
The costings advanced by the consultants are based on 2003 figures for resources in order to draw comparisons with the first proposals put to the public. The figures, as far as I can determine, include no provision for the hardware of public transport.
Throughout the entire length of the roading element proposed for the corridor there are inconsistent widths and inconsistent bus lane options. Opus has confirmed there will be many "squeeze" points and mergers. They also confirm this will impact on traffic flows and efficiency. Merger systems and squeeze points clearly impact on increasing congestion, frustration and delay in roading systems that are under heavy usage. This does not appear to be a proposal that meets the intended objective of the regional transport strategy.
There is nothing in the proposal that genuinely encourages changed transport behaviour in the Manukau City area, an area where around 90% plus do not use public transport. There are few bus lanes and little to show how rail connectivity will be spread through Manukau. In fact the opposite seems to be the case. All the major development in Manukau appears to be proceeding on the basis of car/road linkages. There is for example nothing to show how alternative frieght movements in and out of the large new industrial park in Manukau can be served other than by trucks and cars.
However, he says, possible alternatives do emerge from the evidence, including "increasing rail connectivity across Hobson towards the Manukau region but not roading" and concentrating on a broadened Allens Road route to link Manukau to existing networks.
Finally, he says, there is considerable evidence of "the environmental significance of Purewa and Hobson Bays to the 'well-being' and recreational and lifestyle/welfare of Auckland City" - a significance that was not apparent 40 years ago when the route was blueprinted for a motorway.
For such heresy, Churton finds himself standing as an independent. The pettiness of intra-CitRat relations might be indicated by Aaron Bhatnagar's email objecting to my description of Churton's Centre Right Independent platform as a "ticket".
Meanwhile, anti-Banks CitRat Jane Arnott has emailed to politely object to my description of her as "standing in Western Bays and therefore in little danger of being elected":
Before you write me off (!) come and meet me. I'll show you the sorts of things around Western Bays Ward that are upsetting residents. I should know, I've been doorknocking for days plus my file on issues and complaints I have attended to in Grey Lynn is substantial and dates back years. By the way, do you know anything at all about me?? Or only what you read in the papers!
Righto, then: Bhatnagar's blog exults in this morning's Herald poll (actually the same poll that the Herald has been successfully extracting stories from all week; including the bad news for Banks about the street race and his electoral support) that appears to show 60% support amongst Aucklanders for the Eastern route. But it also shows the same level of support for paying for the road with a toll. And I'm still waiting for someone to show me the numbers that actually show that's possible. Remember, Banks has already acknowledged as much, and blathered about imposing a toll barrier around the entire CBD - which wouldn't work either.
When in doubt, folks, do the math …
PS: Meanwhile, Northern local body candidate Bruce Thorpe has a blog (he needs to put a bio on it) and I'm interested to hear of any other contenders anywhere who've ventured into the blogosphere.
Globe agog | Sep 02, 2004 10:22
So Downing Street has quietly told John Kerry it hopes he wins November's US presidential election. It's hardly surprising. With the exception of Israel, Australia and Italy, there probably isn't a sovereign government in the world that feels any different. Of course, we don't get to vote - just look on agog and uneasy.
This week's Zogby poll of New Yorkers casts an interesting light on all the cynical 9/11 blather at the Republican conference. Half of the New York City residents polled said they believed that the American leadership "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act." Nearly a third of those identifying themselves as Republicans expressed the same belief. Two thirds of New Yorkers want another investigation of the attacks.
The case of Ed Schrock - the extreme-conservative (and publicly anti-gay) US congressman who announced the withdrawal of his candidacy this week after Blogactive.com released a recording of him seeking sex on a gay phone sex line - has revved up the "outing" debate in America. Blogactive has now effectively outed former New York mayor Ed Koch by slamming him for "supporting G. W. Bush and the most homophobic platform in American history."
Both the practice of outing and more particularly the use of tapes from what its users presumed was a confidential service are controversial, but Blogactive says that members of Congress and "highly placed officials in the Bush Administration" will be next for the treatment: "The time has come for these gay homophobes to step up or be outed ... Schrock is the first ... more will follow."
Blue Lemur has some background on the Schrock affair.
This just in: Conrad Black looted his listed media company Hollinger to the tune of $US400 million in what a new report describes as a campaign of "corporate kleptocracy". And who let him do it? Why, the White House's favourite war profiteer, Richard Perle. Is there anyone in that crowd who isn't crooked, negligent or both?
A Boston Globe editorial explains some of the activities that are the subject of the current FBI investigation at the Pentagon and expresses the view that the issue is more one of chaotic freelance operations and rampant agendas under the current leadership than serious espionage. It's still fairly mind-boggling.
Intriguingly, it appears that this isn't the first time the FBI has had cause to investigate the neocon cabal at the centre of the affair - and now earlier probes into the activities of Perle, Wolfowitz and Feith are being reviewed.
In serious bling news, check out P Diddy's diamond-encrusted iPod. It's one of the new HP-branded 'Pods, but the others don't come with diamonds.
Meanwhile, the new iMac G5, unveiled this week in Paris, is the topic of hot debate in the Mac world. Some people love it, some people hate and a lot of people are noting its thematic resemblance to the iPod. All I know is that I've been waiting for this puppy and I'm buying one as soon as they're available.
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