From my Dad

Benefits - the staple diet of gangs

If ever you want a damning example of why unconditional welfare benefits are a bad idea:

This fictional Gang Family Example reflects the Gang Intelligence Centre's research into real gang-related families.

Ruby
• Ruby is in her early 70s. She has had nine children from two relationships. She has been a long-term beneficiary, and is currently the caregiver of several young children who are her family members.
• She is currently partnered to a gang member.
• All of Ruby's 9 children have been beneficiaries. Eight are currently on a benefit, and one is now in employment.
• All five of Ruby's daughters have been victims of family violence. One is also a family violence offender. Two of Ruby's sons are family violence offenders.
• Five of Ruby's adult children have been in prison and/or on probation.
• Two of her daughters are partnered to gang members and one son is a gang member.

Missing the point about 'male, pale and stale' label

Many of you will have seen Karl du Fresne's excellent column either in the DomPost or at his site. The response is still ongoing with another letter appearing today. So belatedly I've thrown my two cent's worth in:

Dear Editor

Most of Karl du Fresne's critics (Male, pale and stale, May 31) have missed his main point - the great irony of  'liberals' using intentionally insulting language about the sex, skin colour and age of an entire group who have no control over these characteristics.

But as so many want to talk about the privilege of the white male baby-boomers, lets do it. As young men they grew up in a society with strict expectations about how they would conduct their lives. Corralled into shot-gun marriages, made the compulsory breadwinner of the family, pursued by the courts if they rejected this task; channelled into menial, repetitive jobs in car manufacturing, the meat works or railways; only a select few went to university and became professionals. Stuck in their economic class because the country was yet to become innovative and export- diverse (beyond agriculture). No cheap cars or cheap air travel.  No internet shopping, decent bars and cafes, or mobile phones. No credit cards. Earning, scrimping  and saving was the restrictive routine for most.

I very much doubt today's generation would exchange their freedom and choice for young adulthood in the 1960s where homogeneity and conformity ruled. Privilege? Not a lot.

More Maori and Pacific medical students

The University of Otago has never seen so many Māori students studying to be doctors, new research from the New Zealand Medical Journal shows.

There are any number of ways this good news story can be negatively interpreted.

Quotas?

Why do Maori patients need Maori doctors?

How 'Maori' are they anyway?


Frankly my interest in the race and reverse discrimination debate is minimal.

However it happens, whatever it means,  I'm happy to  note and broadcast this development.

Pro Vice Chancellor Peter Crampton said the increase in Māori and Pacific students was a positive step in ensuring health workers in the future better reflect the people of New Zealand.
"This is the vision: that when you and I engage with the healthcare system, wherever we may engage, it might be with our own doctor, or with the nurse or with the hospital or with the physiotherapist, or the pharmacist, that there is every likelihood we would be engaging with a Māori health professional.
"We want that to be normal, and in the past that has not been normal."

Lots of 'ifs' and 'maybes'

In 2009 KickStart breakfast programmes were introduced into schools. Fonterra provided milk and Sanitarium cereals. Government provided subsidy. MSD published an evaluation study today.

It appears there is robust modelling to show some improvement in dental outcomes (though modest). But I smile over other findings.

Attempts to find better bone health for instance:

"We see no evidence of a significant association between KickStart intensity and the two administrative indicators of fracture. One possible explanation is that KickStart intensity had no association with bone health. Another is that students who received more KickStart were more active as a result of increased energy intake. Falls may have increased at the same time as the likelihood of fracture upon falling was reduced as a result of improvements in bone health."

Then there is more speculation:

 -KickStart may have improved the nutritional quality of the breakfasts consumed by students. This mechanism is suggested by a study by Bhattacharya et al. (2006) which examined the United States School Breakfast Program. 

-The effect of the breakfasts may have been to displace consumption of unhealthy snack foods, including sugary food and drinks, as suggested by the cross-sectional study conducted by Utter and colleagues (2007).

-Reduced pressure on home budgets as a result of KickStart may have allowed families and whānau to purchase higher quality foods to eat at other times of the day and week. Such spillover effects are suggested by the Bhattacharya et al. (2006) study, which found that both adults and preschool children had healthier diets and lower percentages of calories from fat when the School Breakfast Program was available to school-aged children in the household.(My emphasis)

From this it is then inferred:

 If Kickstart caused improvements in diet and caused sugary food and drinks to be displaced, this would suggest that benefits might also include reduced obesity and improvements in learning, health and development (Thornley et al., 2017a), including
reductions in rheumatic fever (Thornley et al., 2017b). (my emphasis)

I hope all of these improvements come to pass and feel somewhat sorry that the researchers were unable to conclude very much at all.

Apologies

If you have posted a comment recently and not seen it appear, that's because unbeknownst to me it has been sitting in 'awaiting moderation'. Mr Wahlberg kindly drew the 'disappearing' comments to my attention and discussions with a fellow blogger led me to where they were.

I will continue with moderation but ensure that your VALUED comments are published in future.

The 'P' testing hoax

Having dealt with real estate and renting recently, the issue of 'P' testing caught my attention, as matters do when they start to personally effect you. I wrote the following but had sat on it unfinished. Now the Government's chief scientist agrees. So for what it's worth:

Despite concerted efforts to reduce availability of key ingredient pseudo-ephedrine, the manufacture of methamphetamine continues along with a new hysteria - P contaminated houses. This ‘crisis’ suits and serves a new industry of testers and contaminant cleaner-uppers.  Landlords and resident owners however bear the brunt of costs associated with this fledgling ticket-clipping industry.  In late 2017, Ross Bell, New Zealand Drug Foundation executive director, told journalist, Maria Slade,

“As a country we’ve gone down this rabbit hole. I’ve described [meth testing] as the biggest scam that’s ever been run in New Zealand, and I still hold that to be true.” 

There is now a clause in real estate contracts whereby a seller must agree to methamphetamine-testing of their property. Of course most properties will be free from contamination but the clause is there to ‘test’ for willingness to comply. A resistance would indicate a possible problem. But the very presence of the clause draws the attention of the potential buyer who then feels pressured to take up the option. He is unaware that the official level of P contamination considered dangerous is very low and highly contentious. In a risk-averse climate, governments in particular are bound to err on the side of safety.

The current level is set at 1.5 microgram per 100 square centimetres. Above this level a property is legally ‘contaminated’. But Nick Kim of Massey University says the level is “risibly low”. According to Slade:

“In a 2016 paper Kim advised that the lowest level of daily exposure to meth that could have a remotely plausible health effect on infants, the most vulnerable members of society, was 12 micrograms – about 8 times the new standard.” 

Other academics are more cautious but agree that the level is set low to provide a substantial safety buffer. The Drug Foundation succinctly captures how this manufactured crisis is based on falsehood:

“The debate about the health risks of living in a house where methamphetamine has previously been smoked (‘non-labs’) has not arisen from concerns raised by the medical or scientific establishment. Instead, it has been driven by Housing New Zealand’s ‘zero tolerance’ approach to tenants taking drugs in their properties, by the media response to that and by the methamphetamine testing and remediation industry.”

New Zealand Drug Foundation, 2017:

"New Zealand spent $52 million last year remediating state houses that contained residues of methamphetamine. In fact, there is no scientific evidence that living in a house where methamphetamine has previously been smoked causes harm. The cost is mind-boggling, but so are the social justice implications – many Housing New Zealand clients were forced to leave their homes and are now homeless and facing huge debts, along with their children and dependants."

Thanks government. Just another fiasco associated with the war on drugs.

 

More fact checking on Cindy Kiro

Yesterday Cindy Kiro was interviewed by Chris Lynch, NewstalkZB, Christchurch. I blogged about two statements which were false. Here's another:

"...New Zealand was the first country in the world in the 1930s to have the Social Security Act."

Not true. The US 1935 Social Security Act preceded NZ by 3 years.

And of course the Germans were well ahead of very other country. It was Germany that introduced the first old age pension - not NZ.

Back to Kiro.

"We need to go back to some of the roots ...it was called 'security' because it gave people, families in particular, some security in times of massive uncertainty."

Not all families, and certainly not without conditions and obligations.

For instance:

While the 1938 act did not explicitly discriminate against Māori, the provision for the payment of benefits at a lower rate ‘if the maximum benefit is not necessary for the maintenance of the beneficiary’ allowed officials to pay Māori less than Pākehā. While communal living was often cited as a reason for reduction of Māori benefits, MP Eruera Tirikātene told the minister of social security in 1940 that Europeans living at the Rātana pā got the full benefit, while Māori residents had a reduced benefit.

Additionally, and this would be antithetical to the current panelists, in respect of the 1938 act:

"Moral qualifications have been retained in the  liberalized provisions taken over from earlier legislation." 

Moral qualifications? With respect to eligibility to the invalid benefit:

"...the disability must have been acquired during residence in New Zealand and must not be self-induced."

The only benefit available for mothers without partners was contingent on them being legally 'married' and unable to obtain maintenance through the courts. Family allowances were also only payable in respect of married parents.

With regard to the unemployment benefit:

"...the Commission may postpone the commencement of an unemployment benefit
for as long as 6 weeks or even terminate it altogether if the applicant lost his job through misconduct, left voluntarily without good reason, or failed to accept an offer of suitable employment."

I don't think these are the roots that Kiro wants to return to. In fact I doubt she has any idea about the act or she'd stop idealizing it.

Kiro kicks off badly

Among a lot of disjointed verbiage Cindy Kiro, appointed to lead the welfare review Labour promised the Greens, says to Chris Lynch on NewstalkZB:

"...sole parents constitute something less than 2 percent of benefit dependants..."

She is completely out of touch.

Sole parents who are benefit dependants constitute 2% of the working population.

Lynch, to his credit, tackled her on the issue of mothers not being obliged to name the fathers of their children, by talking about the importance of fathers to families. She then contradicts herself by saying we can't hark back to the 1950s because families have changed so much. But earlier she was pushing the line that we need to go back to the beginning of welfare, when it was called social 'security' and reflect those values. She can't have it both ways

Then she clearly tells him that child poverty has worsened since 2003. From the official government source:

• There is no evidence of any increasing depth of relative income poverty over the last two decades.

Kiro has a track record of telling porkies.

The best I can offer is maybe she genuinely believes her own statements and is merely misguided.

The alternative is unpalatable.

About as Left as it could be

Labour has announced the make-up of the welfare review panel:

The members:

Professor Cindy Kiro (chairwoman) - responsible for Māori/indigenous education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland

Professor Innes Asher – paediatrician and health spokeswoman for the Child Poverty Action Group

Kay Brereton – Welfare advocate and co-convenor of the National Beneficiary Advocates Consultative Group

Dr Huhana Hickey - Member of the NZ Human Rights Review Tribunal and chairwoman of the Auckland Council Disability Strategic Advisory Panel

Professor Tracey McIntosh - head of department for Sociology at the University of Auckland

Dr Ganesh Nana - Chief economist at BERL

Phil O'Reilly – Former chief executive of BusinessNZ and current managing director at Iron Duke Partners

Robert Reid – President of First Union

Trevor McGlinchey - Executive officer of New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services

Latayvia Tualasea Tautai - Young Pacific leader from Auckland and university student

Charles Waldegrave - Founder of the Family Centre Social Policy Research Unit 1991 and co-lead of the New Zealand Poverty Measurement Project

I've been around the welfare 'industry' a long time and can tell you that, with the exception of Phil O'Reilly, and possibly Latayvia Tualasea Tautai, whose name is new to me, this is a strongly politically left group. Each will believe that greater wealth redistribution is the answer to 'inclusivity'; that the haves must be forced to support the have-nots regardless of what that does to the motivation and spirit of the have-nots and their children. That the main problem with benefits is lack of generosity, too many conditions and too many obligations. I am certain each of these panelists would proudly describe themselves as socialists. It is also assured that this group will tell the Minister exactly what she wants to hear.

The best outcome for NZ, including beneficiaries, would be Labour losing the next election and this group's brief to backwards-pedal going absolutely nowhere.

(What to expect.)

Update: Over at Kiwiblog this regarding Latayvia Tualasea Tautai

Ireland's abortion vote

The result of Ireland's abortion vote is the right one. I'd have voted with the majority.

But I feel very sad too. Ideally, any smidgen of life should be able to fight its way to fruition. A pregnant mum should want to safeguard her unborn baby, to give it life, even against odds. As an older mum I knew the three month test could show I was carrying a child that was 'imperfect'. I had already resolved to continue should that be the case.

But that's just my situation. My values (not to mention fortunate circumstances and lack of privation) produce a personal decision that cannot be imposed by law on every other female.

Watch out for a spike in prem babies

I wrote in my last column for NZCPR that the baby bonus came in on April 1, 2018. It did not. It kicks in on July 1, 2018. Apologies.

Too late for the PM but every other family will receive an extra $60 a week regardless of their family income.

What is a Best Start tax credit?
Best Start tax credit is a weekly payment of $60 (up to $3,120 per year) per child for a baby born on or after 1 July 2018.
For the first year of the baby's life the family's income is not taken into account. For families earning less than $79,000, Best Start will continue at $60 per week until the child turns 3. If the family income is above $79,000, payments will reduce or stop depending on your income.

This is going to get very messy though.

My baby is due after 1 July 2018, what happens if it comes early?
If your baby's expected due date is on or after 1 July 2018 and is born before this date you're still eligible for Best Start. Depending on your circumstances, you may be eligible for the parental tax credit and you may choose to receive this instead of Best Start.
Parental tax credit is a weekly payment of up to $220 (total of $2,200) paid for the first 10 weeks after your baby was born. It is only available for babies born before 1 July 2018 whose due date was on or after 1 July 2018.

 There are going to be a lot of calculators out.

The difference between $9,360 (3 years of $60 a week) and $2,200 is large.

Who decides what the official expected date is anyway? Many women can't remember the details required to calculate a specific date. Some do not discover they are pregnant until well into the gestation period. Or has some sort of science emerged since I was a expectant mum whereby an exact official date is declared and written in stone? Neither of mine was born on the predicted date. The first was very early and the second quite late.

Prediction: the number of 'premature' babies is going to rise significantly next month.

'Poverty' improperly blamed again

NewstalkZB is reporting on new Australian longitudinal research that links childhood background to the risk of being placed on anti-psychotic medications:

The study will be presented today during the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Annual Congress in Auckland in front of a national and international gathering of experts.
The study was led by social policy researcher Amy Kaim from the Robinson Research Institute at the University of Adelaide using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), cross matched with information from Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
"The preliminary findings indicate that a larger proportion of children and teens from disadvantaged families are being placed on antipsychotic medication than others in the general population," she said.
"A larger proportion of children and teens taking the medication were boys, in lower-income families, with an unemployed primary caregiver, who were living in single-parent households.

My contention is always that the family type is more important than the level of income. But the headline for this article reads:

Poverty link with children's mental health 'unarguable'

Noting that error isn't just a frustration on my behalf. It has ramifications.

Because the solution to alleviating the plight of these children automatically becomes putting more public money into their homes.

When told about the research Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft (who I used to rate as the Principal Youth Court Judge but has been disappointing in his present role) responded:

"There is an absolute desperate and long term need to right the wrongs of the last 30 years. It's all in our power to reduce the rates of income-related child poverty and material deprivation in New Zealand."

He's with those advocates who date 'poverty' back to the benefit cuts - "30 years".

I go back 50 years. 1968. Or thereabouts. The first DPB (the emergency benefit introduced by National). There has been a 50 year experimentation with funding one parent families and the results have been dreadful.

Here's a scenario for you. A young female, from an abusive family, herself now a single mother with three kids from different fathers all of whom have a smorgasbord of convictions, debt, periods of unemployment or imprisonment, drug habits and/or violent tendencies. Do you honestly think putting more money into her weekly benefit is going to change anything for those kids and their prospects?

Why are employers bearing responsibility for family violence?

It's refreshing to see National MP Mark Mitchell talking about unintended consequences.

Jan Logie's family violence bill makes employers provide leave for employees to take time off work if they need to leave a relationship. RNZ reports:

When the bill first came up at Parliament it had a strong National Party backing, but following a select committee process in which amendments were made to reduce an employer's say in the matter, the party got cold feet.

Justice spokesperson Mark Mitchell said that was mostly because of the impact it could have on small-to-medium sized businesses which, he said, could end up in arbitration or strained for time or finance.

National now plans to introduce a SOP and the Employers and Manufacturers Union supports them. Small enterprises account for 29% of all employees.

But beyond these concerns I am somewhat befuddled by the need for this legislation.

We know that extricating oneself from a violent relationship can be extremely difficult and dangerous. Assuming the violence is on the male side, just after leaving him is when she is most vulnerable. He is insanely jealous at the idea he can't have her and control her any more and this is when he is most likely to harm her. The RNZ article alludes briefly to a particular typical case of this.

He will try to hunt her down. And her workplace is a target. If she is not there, having been granted leave, all well and good (though her colleagues may be exposed to danger when he turns up and is thwarted).

But why would she ever feel safely able to return there? Or how long before she can feel safely able to return? Weeks, months?

Surely it is better to deal with the threatening ex? Isn't that why the nature of protection orders was changed, to allow police greater powers of arrest?

And I'm no fan of an over-empowered police force but find myself arguing for it when faced with unpalatable alternatives.(I could go into a complete rant here about the expanding welfare state; the undermining of stable two parent families and the advent of young males being raised in single mother, serial 'fathers', abusive environments that render them thugs in turn, but will refrain).

It seems manifestly unjust that employers are having to bear this level of responsibility for family violence. Left to me I would oppose the bill.

Why more mothers and babies die in the US

Political left-wing commentator Gordon Campbell writes a column in my local paper, the Hutt News. Last week's (I can't find it on-line)  was essentially about the Royal and Jacinda babies; the price of maternity care in the United States and despite the cost, the "dire"quality of care resulting in extraordinarily high infant and mother deaths. A typical anti-capitalist making the numbers tell his story.

My response:

Gordon Campbell, Hutt News, May 8, blames "dire" quality of care for the relatively high US infant mortality and maternal death rates. It is my experience that whenever statistics diverge strongly from the 'norm' there are sound reasons why, often based on how they are derived.

In 2016 Science Daily pointed out that some countries treat babies born after a very low gestation period and with very low odds of surviving as 'stillbirths'. In the United States these babies would be considered 'born' despite their high chances of death. Accordingly, "These premature births are the biggest factor in explaining the United States' high infant mortality rate."

Similarly, maternal deaths are also measured differently. According to the Economist, 2017, standard definitions used to make international comparisons are not used in the US. The World Health Organisation mandates a measurement based on a maternal death from pregnancy complications  from when the mother becomes pregnant to six weeks after the birth (or termination of pregnancy). New Zealand adheres to this. The US, however, measures deaths up to one year after the birth. As suicide is a leading cause of death among pregnant and new mothers in NZ and the US, extending the period of measurement to one year would make a significant difference to the recorded death rate.

Additionally, The Economist explains:"In rich countries, [maternal] deaths are tallied from vital-registration systems which in turn compile data from death certificates. These, however, are known to undercount maternal deaths, partly because doctors must select a cause of death from thousands of codes. They are more likely to consider the subset reserved for medical problems caused by pregnancy when the form has a checkbox asking whether the woman had been pregnant.
America added this checkbox to its standard death certificate in 2003, though it took more than a decade for all states to adopt it. It has been a mixed blessing, says Andreea Creanga of Johns Hopkins University. A recent study found that its growing use accounted for 80% of the steep rise in maternal mortality recorded in 2000-14."

The United States generally outperforms other countries in the collection and dissemination of rigorous data. Its information systems produce exhaustive, accurate and accessible statistics through which a proper understanding of matters can be achieved. They cannot though control a critic's lack of comprehension about comparability across countries.

Paying the Pipers

Just published at NZCPR:

According to the Dominion Post, April 25, ” … the Government is setting up a welfare overhaul ‘expert advisory group’ supported by a secretariat of officials from different departments.” 1

Labour has promised the Greens an overhaul. The ghost of Metiria Turei hovers. Lest we forget, the ex Green co-leader  pleaded poverty as a sole parent student to vindicate fraudulent claims to WINZ. Her eventual replacement, Marama Davidson played rear-guard soon after Turei’s resignation (at a South Auckland rally attended by both) saying, “… the party would raise benefits by 20 percent – including student allowances and all core living payments – if elected.”2

But back to 2018.

“The agreement between Labour and the Greens … commits the Government to overhaul the welfare system with the aim of lifting families out of poverty and ensuring that ‘everyone has a standard of living … that enables them to live in dignity and participate in their communities’.”3

No kudos for originality here. This is exactly the sentiment expressed by the 1972 Royal Commission on Social Security. That commission gave us the DPB, which was followed by an explosion in unmarried births (but wasn’t enough for Turei to live on.)

Now in government, albeit with a muddled mandate, Labour has a long list of Pipers to pay beyond just the Greens: they are beneficiary advocates, unionists, academics, and even government agencies like the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, all of whom have sought benefit reforms along the following lines:

More

Suicide patterns vary dramatically

The following graph (P60) depicts the worst of statistics - suicide among young people. The ethnic/age information is new to me however and is exercising my brain. The peak for Maori suicide is much younger than for European. And the differences are inverse and large before and after age 16. I understand that some suicides are due to broken relationships. Does the variation reflect the tendency for Maori and Pacific youngsters to enter intimate relationships earlier? What else is behind these variances? (Bearing in mind they span 14 years so may mask differences between what was happening in 2002 compared to 2016).

#MeTooNZ getting out of control

Just a few weeks ago I posted about the vigilantism of #MeToo arriving in NZ

Today's new-format trash-tabloid DomPost has its front page emblazoned with:

Doctor accused of sex with patients

Note that the on-line headline has been significantly modified to, "Wellington Doctor accused of having sexual relationships with women patients".

One of them even became his wife!!

This 'offending' has occurred over three decades and involves 3 women and the estranged wife.

The main complainant (not the wife) admits she entered into a consensual sexual albeit brief relationship with the apparently very popular doctor.

He pursues  patients he finds attractive. Buys them gifts, takes them on trips, buys them dinner. Not once is there any mention that he forced himself on one of them.

The Medical Council are investigating because it is unethical for doctors to enter into sexual relationships with patients.

Main complainant says she is not vindictive but doesn't think he is fit to practice. Well hello? He isn't practicing.

He is 64 as is the main complainant.

Clearly this is a publicity piece to draw out any other 'victims'.

Because it serves no other purpose.

The doctor with poor judgment sounds like a hopeless romantic looking for love in all the wrong places.

How far is this witch hunt going to go?

What is actually happening with crime rates

We are told that the rising imprisonment rate and population is mostly about sentencing policy because crime rates are falling.

That is only partially true.

For instance, as of  March 2017:

-violent crime in public places had decreased 17% since June 2011

but...

-violent crime in dwellings had increased 9% since June 2011

Overall the violent crime rate hit a low point in June 2014 and has climbed since.

The general crime rate bottomed in September 2015 and reverted to growth. Youth crime hit its lowest rate in June 2015 and then started to increase.

Is there any update on March 2017, now over a year ago?

Published by the Police in February 2018, some data up to December 2017 shows overall 'victimisations' were down 1% from the previous 12 months:


- Theft victimisations reduced by 0.5% compared with the previous 12 months

- Burglary victimisations decreased by 2.9% compared with the previous 12 months

- Assault victimisations decreased by 0.4% compared with the previous 12 months

But...

- Serious assaults resulting in injury increased by 12.4% compared with the previous 12 months

Overall this results in a rather flat trend line hiding the fact that violence is worsening (the two spikes are Jan 2017 and Jan 2018 - undoubtedly holiday family violence):

But the police say, "New Zealand is a safe place to live", because "...three quarters of New Zealanders reported no victimisation in the previous 12 months."

I am relieved to be among the 75 percent.

But kudos to the police for improving their statistical tools and making them publicly available.

Have a play. There are numerous categories which once clicked on and loaded can then be examined further by district, trend, demographics etc.

Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels)

I am a huge fan. This week I have re-read Life at the Bottom which gave me cause to check my link to Dalrymple at this blog. It was obsolete, but is now operational.

Here is a sample of his recent writing for the Spectator:

"The furore over the parole granted to John Worboys, the rapist taxi driver, misses the point entirely — that the system of parole is disgraceful in theory and irredeemably unworkable in practice. The only thing that it is good for is the employment of large numbers of officials engaged in pointless or fatuous tasks who might other-wise be unemployed.
The system is predicated on the ability of experts to predict the future conduct of convicted prisoners. Will they or will they not repeat their crimes if let out early?"

There is nobody I read who makes me think more, and sometimes, laugh more.

Having spent over two years working with a prisoner towards parole I utterly understand the sense in Dalrymple's view. The arbitrariness of whether or not a prisoner will walk free is unacceptable.

A man is to be punished for what he has done beyond reasonable doubt, not for what some questionnaire or bogus calculation says he has a 70 per cent chance of doing at some time in the future.

But there is also a seductive humanity to monitoring how prisoners progress through the system and allowing earlier release. Some actually improve in their self-awareness and mature, though I doubt it's a majority. At the same time Dalrymple (having been a prison psychiatrist) fully comprehends some prisoner's surprising and skillful capacity to 'play the game'.