Privacy in prison

Skimming through the Ombudsman Annual Report looking for information about complaints concerning the OIA, I came across the following. It bothered me enough to stop and re-read it. The deprivation of any privacy must be utterly dehumanising.

Of course our inclination is to put ourselves into such a situation and feel repelled by the deep indignity of such monitoring (which was a surprise to me.) Then our next inclination is to remind ourselves that the subjects of such questionable scrutiny have in many cases treated others to far worse. Also, I am assuming, the monitoring is done to protect prisoners from themselves. I'd be interested in your reaction:

Privacy issues

By their very nature, prisons house difficult to manage, sometimes dangerous and often vulnerable prisoners who can push boundaries and challenge the system. In coercive environments such as prisons, there is a danger that security is overemphasised to the detriment of the dignity of prisoners. This year we found examples where we consider order and security prevailed too easily over dignity and fairness.

In Youth Units, double cells are monitored on camera and have limited privacy screening around the toilet/shower area. In Waikeria East, 7 cells (the old at risk cells) are monitored on camera but house mainstream prisoners.

In Northland Prison, prisoners in Separates cells are required to shower in an external yard which is monitored on camera.

As well as being monitored on camera, women in the Separates cells at Auckland Women’s Prison can be observed by prisoners and staff from both the corridor and the cell opposite using the toilet and shower. In the At Risk Unit, cells are monitored by cameras, including the unscreened toilet area. Cameras in both units are monitored by staff in the office and in “Master Control”including by officers of the opposite sex in the course of their work when female staff are unavailable. At Auckland Women’s Prison just over 41% of officers are male.

The ability to view naked female prisoners in the shower and undertaking their ablutions is of great concern.

We consider this to be significantly degrading treatment or punishment under COTA. The ability to view male prisoners in the shower is similarly degrading. We recommended that cameras should not cover toilets and shower areas. This was not accepted by Corrections.

Save me from aggrieved women

The irony of it struck me this morning. The reason I am so often out of step with modern-day feminists is because I can fight my own battles.

I wish the randy old goat who made a pass at this woman would out himself because her dragging it up every media avenue she can find is going to get very irksome.

It isn't exclusively women but every day someone bleats to the media about the violation of their 'rights'. Or the offence someone or some action has caused them. The consequent act of either utu or victimhood becomes an obsession out of all proportion to the incident.

It's not newsworthy and it doesn't become the complainant.

Rip-off 'artists'

A belated comment came in on a 4 year-old post I'd scathingly written about 'public' art and its lack of merit. It's from a UK reader who relates much the same from the Northern hemisphere

Lindsay, this may be an old post on your blog that I respond to in 2014 but you are so right, and so so many of us (including creatives) feel contempt for these cliques with their noses in the trough.

I respond here as someone in the UK with many years involvement in the visual arts. In my own locale, (particularly since the massive economic shocks of 2008 onwards), we experience significant cut backs in core civic services - health, public transport, refuse collection - and at the same time we read in the local rags about huge funding given to a local art space in the new library which, as an often daily visitor to that library I can assure you the contemporary art space receives very few visitors ever, and the creative input exhibited seems almost purposefully asinine in its lameness and laziness.

Another group have been parachuted into the borough from elsewhere in the country (demonstrable links to certain councilors however it needs to be noted) - these folks have been awarded large grants, given a number of local buildings to base themselves in (peppercorn rent), allowed to host an annual festival (which they now charge admission for) on top of receiving grants. It's a complete scam!

The library arts space received recently a six-figure sum to operate; I can say as a fan of a wide range of art including installations that what is shown there is utterly banal and a joke. Virtually no-one visits and yet the organization continues to receive high praise and puff-pieces from their cronies in the local paper. Another outrage with this library is that for a few years, one particular librarian has been given their very own display space in the public library to not only show but also market their art. This is a paid employee of the library while other local businesses and crafts people have to pay rent and rates. It's really shocking. The arts collective I previously mentioned in the library have now stated in a recent 'initiative' in the local paper that they will be dedicating some of their space throughout the year to 'local artists' but these artists must pay to exhibit!! Honestly you couldn't make it up!!

Weak Labour

Look at the weakness of this exchange in parliament yesterday. It was a patsy set up so National could crow about sole parents leaving welfare. Fair enough.

Beneficiaries—Statistics 7. ALFRED NGARO (National) to the Minister for Social Development: What reports has she received regarding the number of New Zealanders who are benefit-dependent, in particular those relating to sole parents?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Under this Government, the number of people on welfare for this quarter is the lowest it has been since 2008. The latest benefit figures released last week show that there are now over 10,000 fewer people on welfare compared with September last year, and more than 70 percent of them are sole parents. We know that sole parents who go on benefit, particularly in their teens, do have the highest lifetime cost of any group on welfare and are more likely to stay on welfare. The reduction in the number of sole parents on benefit extends across all ages, and this is indeed a positive trend.
Alfred Ngaro: What are the Government’s priorities for ensuring we move New Zealanders who are on benefits into work over the next 3 years?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: We believe that the best way out of poverty is through work, and that is why we have set ambitious targets to reduce long-term welfare dependency. As part of this programme we will progress legislation extending the Youth Service approach to under-20s. This will see these young people working with a dedicated provider to deliver intensive support and guidance as well as budgeting support and help paying their bills. This Government believes that the welfare system should provide a safety net for those in genuine need and that people are better (uncorrected transcript—subject to correction and further editing) off in work. This is particularly the case for our youngest New Zealanders, who deserve to be backed rather than left to sit on welfare.
Sue Moroney: How many sole parents have simply been transferred from sole parent support on to a different category of benefit over the same period?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I do not have any figures on that, but I do not believe that this Government is in the habit of the previous Labour Government of merely shifting people around when it comes to benefit numbers. We are working to make sure that people get off benefit and into work, and, what is more, we are succeeding.
Sue Moroney: I seek leave to table a document showing that the number of sole parents who have been transferred on to job seeker support was about 20,000 over that period.
Mr SPEAKER: I need the source of the document.
Sue Moroney: The source of the document is theNew Zealand Herald.
Mr SPEAKER: No, I will not be putting the leave. 

Tolley should have clarified that sole parents whose youngest child is 14 or over were moved onto the Jobseeker benefit as they have full-time work requirements. However the number of sole parents on any benefit is still lower now than in 2008. That's the point.

And Moroney's question based on a newspaper article was actually irrelevant and a waste of a supplementary. Fewer sole parents are on welfare - period. That'll be why the Greens left it alone.

But good on Tolley for re-stating what used to be the Clark/Cullen position:

We believe that the best way out of poverty is through work

Dispirited Delahunty

Green MP Catherine Delahunty sounds defeated in her post at Daily blog. Well she might. How long have the Greens been in opposition now? And I think in terms of the electorate NZ may have reached peak Green.

Parliament opened this week and I still find it a very odd place. Most of the people are reasonably courteous and friendly, but the rituals are archaic and the rules around issues like the swearing in oath are oppressive and undermine MPs’ commitment to upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Parliamentary opening also celebrates violence, as it involves soldiers and medals, guns, and war planes in the sky. It includes Supreme Court Judges in horsehair wigs. A black rod and a golden mace preside.

It is hard to find the sense of being a Pacific country but when Te Atiawa kuia start the karanga and the whānau perform waiata, then everything comes alive.

The Maiden Speeches are also happening and what a mixed bag they are. Some MPs who look young enough to be my grand babies are making sad enthusiastic speeches about Margaret Thatcher as the role model for their political careers. I have heard new MPs from National and ACT espouse the absolute primacy of the individual with no recognition of how we are social animals who are utterly interdependent. They don’t seem to realise they are the product of many lives and processes, not to mention the taxes of everyone who built the roads, schools, hospitals and institutions where they have gained educational qualifications and privilege.

You would expect these young people to have some modern heroes, but so often its Margaret Thatcher and Roger Douglas who get celebrated. It’s was chilling to see the line-up of older, male Pākehā  former members at the front of Parliament, including Roger Douglas and Don Brash, the architects of the current trickle down disaster. They were sitting watching their young prodigies get up and espouse their individual and property rights obsessions as our world becomes increasingly unequal.

I am thoroughly encouraged that young people are espousing  "individual and property rights."

Delahunty doesn't go very deep. She doesn't understand that the combination of the collective and state compulsion is a dangerous and destructive thing. The combination of the collective - the expression of our interdependence - and voluntarism however is a very good and healthy thing. She can't comprehend that, for instance, the state has weakened the voluntary social interdependence between two parents by financially supplanting the father. She doesn't grasp that the wholesale weakening of individual rights carries with it a devestating weakening of individual responsibility.

The piece finishes,

Thanks to 10 percent of New Zealanders, the Green Party stands here unbeaten, united, and in good voice. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/10/24/guest-blog-catherine-delahunty-back-in-that-house/#sthash.DwrTbFZW.dpuf

Parliament opened this week and I still find it a very odd place. Most of the people are reasonably courteous and friendly, but the rituals are archaic and the rules around issues like the swearing in oath are oppressive and undermine MPs’ commitment to upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Parliamentary opening also celebrates violence, as it involves soldiers and medals, guns, and war planes in the sky. It includes Supreme Court Judges in horsehair wigs. A black rod and a golden mace preside.
It is hard to find the sense of being a Pacific country but when Te Atiawa kuia start the karanga and the whānau perform waiata, then everything comes alive.
The Maiden Speeches are also happening and what a mixed bag they are. Some MPs who look young enough to be my grand babies are making sad enthusiastic speeches about Margaret Thatcher as the role model for their political careers. I have heard new MPs from National and ACT espouse the absolute primacy of the individual with no recognition of how we are social animals who are utterly interdependent. They don’t seem to realise they are the product of many lives and processes, not to mention the taxes of everyone who built the roads, schools, hospitals and institutions where they have gained educational qualifications and privilege.
You would expect these young people to have some modern heroes, but so often its Margaret Thatcher and Roger Douglas who get celebrated. It’s was chilling to see the line-up of older, male Pākehā  former members at the front of Parliament, including Roger Douglas and Don Brash, the architects of the current trickle down disaster. They were sitting watching their young prodigies get up and espouse their individual and property rights obsessions as our world becomes increasingly unequal.
- See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/10/24/guest-blog-catherine-delahunty-back-in-that-house/#sthash.DwrTbFZW.dpuf

Thanks to 10 percent of New Zealanders, the Green Party stands here unbeaten, united, and in good voice.

Except she is clearly not in good voice. 

Trial to assess sole parent benefit fraud

From the MSD Annual Report released yesterday, this is news to me. It appears in the section on Fraud:

 

This is justified. There is clear evidence from more than one source that a significant portion of sole parent benefits are going into families where the recipient has a partner.

I've done a number of searches looking for further information eg what region is the trial being conducted in, to little avail.

However a search of  '1,616 sole parents'  at the MSD website found that at December 2013, there were 1,616 sole parent beneficiaries in the Gisborne Regional Council area. Could be mere coincidence. Though it'd certainly be a good target area. A previous MSD voluntary trial amongst sole parents aimed at getting them into work or training - COMPASS - was conducted in 4 areas. One was Gisborne.

If the trial was being conducted in Gisborne it might provoke a drop in sole parent beneficiaries but the difference between December 2013 and September 2014 (-6.8%) is almost exactly the same as the nationwide drop.

The trial has probably been disrupted by the incident at Ashburton following which (as I recall) home visits were suspended. But let's hope the evaluation will be made public.

I'll ask some OIA questions anyway.