Posts by Rex Widerstrom
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Hard News: Perception and reality in the…, in reply to Russell Brown,
You might still enjoy the show we did record last night – Chief Judge Russell Johnson was particularly good value.
I did indeed, and as was David Lomas. There's a similar effort to what I understand his series to have been, on screen in Australia now - "On Trial". Anyone who knows proxies (and can thus bypass the geoblock) might want to go to the ABC's iview site and have a look.
Judge Russell's comments echoed those of many other jurists, including recently retired WA Chief District Court Judge Antoinette Kennedy, who noted:
Once you can have people more frightened of disorder than tyranny, it enables you to do almost anything you like so far as legislation is concerned. It's also cheap, you see it's very or it was until very recently very cheap and it doesn't require any leadership to say we're going to increase all penalties and we're going to lock everybody up longer...
The problem, of course, is that the McVicar cheer squad will dismiss such sentiments as being those of out-of-touch elitists who have degrees ferchrissakes, and thus no idea of what's truly right or wrong. And lawyers, well... they're just rorting Legal Aid while waiting to be made a judge.
More effective in changing perceptions is what David Lomas alluded to... introduce criminals (or those stereotyping suggests are criminals) to "ordinary" people, who very quickly find that the crims are very ordinary and often quite sympathetic and certainly not the red-in-tooth-and-claw monsters McVicar tells us are outside our windows.
I have a friend who's a mild manner, bespectacled academic and a world authority on Restorative Justice. Bravely, he tells people he's a "convict criminologist" to make the point that not everyone who's been to prison is a monster, and nor do they all reoffend. Likewise I've had some wonderful encounters which have gone:
Person: "All prisoners are scum, and they remain scum after their release".
Me: "I've been a prisoner, actually".
Person: *look of horrified confusion* "Errr well, except you, obviously".
Me: "I was in on remand. Actually half the people in Perth's main prison are on remand, and the majority of them actually walk free when they finally get to court. So they're....?"
Person: "Is that the time?! I'm late for... something..."Hence my enthusiasm for the Wormwood Scrubs idea, and anything else (like "On Trial") that shows crimes for the usually complex and quite nuanced events they are and accused, and convicted, people as being just as varied and multifaceted as the audience.
Failing that, I'd like a debate with McVicar. Kim Workman is both erudite and admirable, but too bloody polite when the bullshit starts to flow!!
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A suggestion to TVNZ7 readers: a show which brings the Minister of Justice, the Attorney General and/or the Minister of Corrections into a prison to answer questions from prisoners, prison officers and others who actually know what they're talking about.
Unashamedly stolen from the BBC's Question Time, which put several pollies into Wormwood Scrubs to do just that.
I'm going to try and get a similar exercise off the ground here... when I get time :-/
If you decide to do it, a heads-up would be appreciated...
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Gak... ironically, struggling to prepare for a Supreme Court hearing seeking to overturn the WA Criminal Property Confiscation Act ("an Act that lacks coherence and, for that reason, is drafted unsatisfactorily"- High Court of Australia. "An Act we have no present intention of reviewing" - Government of WA) and so much I want to say.
I will interject the comment, however, that the new paradigm for dealing with statistics , peer-reviewed research etc amongst politicians (especially my personal favourite, the Attorney General of WA) is to blithely state "I don't accept that" leaving the profferer of said data slack-jawed in amazement at the sheer chutzpah and rendering moot any and all research that doesn't accord with the government's view.
As for sentencing effectiveness, well... sending someone to jail for 6 or 7 years and taking their home, indisputably bought with legitimate income leaving their school-age children with no home and them, when they're finally released, also homeless isn't exactly, err, top-notch rehabilitation.
Must go, affidavits to file...
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Hard News: Friday Fever, in reply to 3410,
I played the hell out of "Shannon" on radio (in the days before computers told you what you could play and when). Great song :-)
In the same spirit, and with condolences to Jackie:
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So no one's going to pst Blondie's "Rapture" to celebrate the fact we're all still here? Okay then, try a band called Rapture... not the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world but... but... MORE COWBELL!!
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Hard News: Friday Fever, in reply to Ethan Tucker,
the kidlings of the PS22 Chorus
Oh gawd how scarily good are they!? I found one once, and then spent most of the afternoon clicking "related video" links, having lost all sense of time to a feeling of wonder. It's relatively easy for kids to sound okay en masse (specially since they tend to look adorable and thus egt extra points) but the PS22ers spotlight soloist after soloist and they could all easily hold their own against an Adele or a Winehouse.
Either that is simply the world's greatest music teacher or there's something in the water in those parts.
On the subject of Adele, I'd only ever heard her sing but she proved a lively and lovely guest with the inimitable Graham Norton. Quite stole my heart... *blush*:
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OnPoint: Budget 2011: Radioactive Space Donut, in reply to Sacha,
black on olive green not that readable
Yes, breathtakingly breathtaking aside from the fact I have to squint like an old man at a salad bar (in IE9).
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Meanwhile in the far west of the West Island, another budget is being delivered...
WA has a Treasurer with all the human warmth of Don Brash, the political instincts of Chris Carter and the same attitude toward wealth distribution as Pansy Wong. Yet not only are they tipped to hand over $600 million to social welfare organisations, they're also going to end the concession on iron ore fines (small bits, as opposed to monetary penalties. Though they were monetary penalties... oh, never mind. They're making mining companies pay more).
Yes I know Western Australia has a lot of wealth buried under ground which (usually) is of no environmental or cultural significance. But it's ruled by a government which is generally appalling in every respect but which faces an Opposition so hopeless everyone agrees they won't see power for at least another 8 years. In other words, they don't have to scrape some off the top and hand it out at the bottom but they have found it in their cold, dead hearts to do so.
Given the same set of circumstances I don't believe Key, English, Bennett, Tolley et al would do the same, as they seem to see those most in need not just as less worthy but somehow un worthy.
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to Rich Lock,
We should probably start legislating against the placebo effect.
Funny you should say that. The Declaration of Helsinki has been moving medical research toward that very position:
The implication being that placebos are not permitted where proven interventions are available.
Which is kind of understandable from a humanitarian perspective - giving sick people drugs that you know don't work is something that only research doctors and Bond villains would dream of doing.
But OTOH if it's adopted it's going to make it damned hard to ascertain what does work. Enter scifi scenario of cloned beings used for drug research, organ harvesting etc.
Okay having now totally sucked the life out of a very witty comment, I'll slink back into my corner...
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to Steve Barnes,
The fact that drugs not manufactured by corporations that lobby governments to prohibit natural substances, eg. cannabis, mushrooms etc., is the big problem
And thus the obvious solution is for a government to say "'P' is a horrible, highly addictive drug with enormous deleterious effects on the individual and on society. If a drug company cares to develop a means to get high that meets these (peer reviewed, objective, evidence-based) safety criteria, we'll license it for sale in this country".
Accept the inevitability of people wanting to take recreational drugs, and outsource the production of safe versions of such drugs to the pharmaceutical industry. They could then lobby against the breweries, which would be a tremendous spectator sport. Or perhaps Lion Nathan might float a "party pill" division. The "criminal element" supplying the toxic substances wouldn't last long... their coroporate competitors would price them out of the market. We might even see the gangs making predatory pricing allegations to the Commerce Commission.
And of course we'd demand a portion of the corporate's profits to fund drug education as the casino, sports betting and racing industry is made to do in Australia.
How come free marketeers lose faith in the market's ability to provide solutions when the issue is a sticky, moralistic one? A commodity is a commodity, subject to the same laws of supply and demand whether it's a pie or a party pill.
Mind you, our markt's probably not big enough for that to work, so we'd have to convince the Americans... *sigh*