Prison Debate

On Wednesday I attended a debate between Kim Workman, National Director of Prison Fellowship and David Fraser, author of A Land Fit For Criminals. It was chaired by Mel Smith (who we heard rather too much from in a tight programme). The topic was, What Should Prisons Do?

Mr Workman said;

- prisons do not rehabilitate, re-offending rates are high
- prisons are very hard on the inmates and their families (though the brutality he described derived from other inmates, not the correction's officers)

He concluded that he would rather see more money being put into higher education and poor South Auckland communities than spent on more prisons. What kind of society do you want to live in he asked? His ideal is a Christian, forgiving and compassionate one.

Mr Fraser said;

- prisons do not rehabilitate, re-conviction rates are high (he made the point that Mr Workman was wrong to talk about re-offending rates which we can know little about.)

- prisons do not deter

- prisons do not make people even worse criminals. Most are very bad when they eventually get there.

- prisons do protect the rest of society but there are too few criminals in them.

He concluded it is a utter scandal that so many paroled prisoners are committing violent crime and hurting or killing people. What kind of society do we want to live in? A safe one.

I went with an open mind but came away (depressingly) concluding that David Fraser is right. The priority for the function of prisons must be to keep the public safe because they are failing to either rehabilitate or deter.

Workman used some graphs based on statistics that hide more than they reveal, to Stephen Frank's frustration, who pointed out that while lines on the graph were not showing increasing crime, police tolerance had increased and much crime was now being ignored. I became somewhat agitated myself when he talked about putting more money into Otara and Mangere. I pointed out that these communities were already turning on welfare.

Kim Workman is to be admired for his attempts to reform prisons and their inmates. But his abiding faith and idealism may very well contribute to the degree of danger the rest of the law-abiding community is exposed to. It is not a conclusion that sits easy with me. I believe in giving people a second, maybe even third chance. I want to believe people can change. Some can. But it would appear more cannot.

He claimed many individual views about criminals and prisons are formed young and often by a cataclysmic experience. I imagine this was a reference to those members of the Sensible Sentencing Trust in attendance. That may be but others attitudes are formed by observation of the facts. Public safety is paramount. And, as Mr Fraser alluded to more than once, nobody is forced to commit crime. Free will exists.