Men’s High Imprisonment Just Because They’re Bad
The headline item on One News today was about a group of lawyers who asked the Waitangi Tribunal to hear a case that high Maori imprisonment and reimprisonment rates reflect racism. The Tribunal has fast-tracked an urgent hearing to deal with this travesty.
The elephant in the room of course is that the difference between male vs female imprisonment and reimprisonment rates is much greater than any racial differences. So it seems that high Maori imprisonment rates are due to racism but high male rates are because men are just bad bastards.
We know that the only gender-specific laws in NZ discriminate against men, such that an assault committed by a man towards a woman has twice the punishment for exactly the same assault committed by a woman, and that deliberately killing a baby or young child can only lead to a murder prosecution and punishment for men while women have their own special crime for this providing a maximum of three years imprisonment, rarely given. However, we’re not aware of any race-specific law that similarly discriminates against Maori. We also know that good research has shown significant anti-male sexism in our justice system regarding prosecutions and sentencing, but is there similar evidence that Maori are more likely to be charged more often and sentenced more harshly than other races for the same crimes? Never mind, as was the case for the UN ‘special rapporteur’ who came to NZ about two years ago to bemoan our racist society, sexism disadvantaging men is fine and can be ignored.
The question might be; is the elephant African or Indian? Usually distinguishable by the size of their ears.
You could also say that men live in a harsher environment, suffer a more difficult environment, and as a result more big ears come to grief and lose their ivory.
In the first case I would say it is a gender observation from the Ministry of Mammary Attacks, in the second case l would say it is a Men’s Issues observation from the Ministry of Men’s Affairs.
Comment by downunder — Sat 19th March 2016 @ 10:14 am
As I recall the thrust of the news item was that Dept of Corrections wasn’t doing enough to reduce recidivism which is a different issue. DoC cannot reduce recidivism nor is sending guys to prison a viable platform for rehabilitation. By way of analogy take an Olympic champion swimmer and lock him/her away for three years without access to a swimming pool then at the end of three years ask him/her to compete in an Olympic qualifying event. What would be the result? Currently the Criminal [In]justice System expects inmates released after several years in custody (where they are denied access to normal daily life) to resume a full “crime free” life? When I was released after a successful appeal I was denied funding for two weeks because some ass in WINZ failed to do his job. Almost a year later the MSD CEO claims that time spent without financial resources does not justify compensation. In other words MSD failure to provide a released inmate with the statutory entitlement (read ‘Financial support on release’ part way down page) is in his opinion perfectly okay. Little wonder his staff are threatened at gun point. Idiots like Brendon Boyle should be locked up for three years to teach them some reality. The reality is that the Ministry of Justice and Department of Courts send people to prison knowing full well that prisons do not rehabilitate and demand that Dept of Corrections fix the problems.
Comment by JONO — Sat 19th March 2016 @ 3:46 pm