Why does Lab & the LNP keep doing the same things that have created the current crisis. Our incarceration rate is ballooning, recidivism is rampant &the costs are now unsustainable. Why do we still think this is a good way? When do we acknowledge the failures and embrace change?
https://twitter.com/KirstiMiller30/status/1249590429793660928
European countries have long re-thought law and order arms races, rejecting the simplistic but populist call to simply lock up offenders and throw away the key. The dividends are being felt, as crime rates and recidivism decline and the cost burden slides with it.
NZ has pioneered “restorative justice” with great success, where many crimes are dealt with by community courts mediated by judges, using closely monitored & strictly supervised diversion programs that steer young offenders to educ &job training instead of addiction & custody.
We now spend over $3.6 billion every year on incarceration, at a per capita rate that exceeds all Western European nations and Canada.
If the waste of 💵 does not trigger your interest in justice reform, if compassion & equity do not spark your concern, there is also the saddest aspect of our current failure. The status quo even fails victims of crime, and ensures more of us will become victims in the future.
The mentally ill and intellectually disabled are particularly over-represented. Officially, over 50 per cent of people in prison have or have previously had a mental illness, although anybody who works in prisons kike I have will confide that the real figure is much higher.
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