NEW ZEALAND PROTESTS

A brief history of protests in New Zealand

This is a brief account of New Zealand’s long history of protests, some that were successful and some that failed, some that were worthy and some that were not. New Zealanders as a nation have always been ready to speak up and take appropriate action, usually lawful, when they see an imminent new law as something they won’t like. Similarly, changes in business, foreign ownership, banking, education, welfare, health, labour, immigration, and practically any other change in society that they suspect will be harmful in some way, will bring determined protest action.

Sir Walter Nash was New Zealand's
oldest Prime Minister

Many protesters are of the one-protest type. They go about their daily lives rarely making waves, until some imminent change has a galvanising effect on them, and they join, even lead, the marchers. When it is all over, win or lose, they go back to their previous lives, living quietly below the radar. A small number of protestors are more of the career type and can be seen actively engaged in an array of protests. Whenever there is protest, they will be there. Some of these career protestors have another overriding, perhaps hidden agenda, and may be political party activists or at least sympathisers. Many protest movements have within their ranks both kinds of protesters. The career types are usually a tiny minority, but often in a commanding role because of their experience and ability to organise.

So when did protesting start in New Zealand? The most likely date would have to be 18 December 1642, when the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sent some men to collect fresh water on the South Island’s north-west coast. The coastal area was an important agricultural place for local Maori and fearing that the foreigners were about to plunder their crops, they protested by killing four members of Tasman’s crew. Tasman subsequently called the place Murderers Bay, and sailed away never to return to New Zealand. It wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to say that the first known protest was highly successful, although somewhat misguided, and certainly a gross over-reaction. In later centuries, Maori would prove time and again that they were fully capable of mounting effective, determined protests, usually in a peaceful manner and within the law.

Nathaniel's Bloodline

Having been born in New Zealand some little time after Tasman’s fiasco, this writer’s memory of protests goes back only to the late 1940’s. I was at primary school in Warkworth when Mr Biro invented his famous ball-point pen to replace ink-wells and nibs, and the scratching sound of sharp instruments on delicate writing paper. Every parent in the district and, I discovered later, in the country and around the world, didn’t want a bar of the ball-point pens. It was claimed that the new pens would spoil children’s hand-writing if they were allowed into schools. Others claimed that the whole education system would break down, kids would grow up illiterate, and Kiwis would be the laughing stock of the world. Some people claimed that introducing ball-point pens was a conspiracy to destroy society so that the already rich and powerful people of the world would have complete world dominance. Some parents threatened to pull their children out of school. How stupid was that! But, as time went by, people got to like their new ball-point pens, schools eventually accepted them, and even the famous Parker Pen Company that had been producing upmarket fountain pens since 1888, came into line in 1960 and started producing ball-points. Meanwhile, the protesters melted out of sight and out of mind.

The Scapegoat

Before we leave education there is the case of Helen Connon (1859-1903). The Connons staged what was pretty much a one family protest as they railed against the exclusion of girls from many schools. This was in the day when a woman’s place was in the bedroom and the kitchen only, and they didn’t need to be educated for that. The Connons had to move to a new town to find a school that would accept Helen. Helen not only got into a school, but she excelled and went on to become the first New Zealand female university graduate (1881), and she graduated with honours, which was a first for a woman in the British Empire. Later she was a school principal.

Almost every invention has met with determined protest action before its launch onto the market. The telephone was no exception and even now, 135 years on, a very small number of people refuse to have anything to do with it.

Motor vehicles were widely objected to for a variety of reasons. People sited noise, pollution, and safety. Others objected because they saw motor vehicles as play things of the rich and famous. Still others objected because they feared that motor vehicles would frighten their horses. Even now many people believe that motor vehicles are the world’s greatest curse. But if they cared to think about the state of a world now without motor vehicles, they would realize that without them the world would be in a truly frightful state as we walked knee deep in horse manure, died early, and were mostly unemployed. The standard of living that we take for granted in the 21^st century would not have been possible without motor vehicles. That protest was wrong, even though it may be right to campaign for safer vehicles and safer driving.

A Twist of Fate

Then there was the protest mounted by one man alone. Samuel Duncan Parnell arrived in New Zealand in 1840 and became self-employed because his conditions of employment were unacceptable to employers who could have given him work. He refused to work more than 40 hours a week. Parnell found little support during his lifetime and had been dead 46 years when the first Labour Government introduced the 40 hour working week as standard.

Changes to New Zealand’s voting system, however minor, have always attracted widespread protest. In the first general election in 1854 only male land owners over the age of 21 were qualified to vote. Non-land owning residents protested, but in vain. It wasn’t until 1874 that all males over 21 were able to vote. It took many years of highly organized protest to have women accepted as voters in 1893, the first country in the world to do so.

A minor change that involves fewer people has been the question of votes for prisoners, and their voting status has changed countless time. Labour usually changes the law to include prisoners and National changes the law to exclude them, and each time the debate gets heated.

Highway America

The campaign for the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional Representation goes back a long way and started as a protest movement, with government and conservative business interests leading the opposition to change. As pressure mounted the government agreed to hold referendums on the question, and subsequently there was a change and the first MMP election was held in 1996. But even now the system, although supported by a majority of electors, remains controversial.

In the early 1960's a decision was made to change New Zealand’s currency from pounds, shillings and pence (£.s.d.) to a decimal system of dollars and cents. Instead of 12 pennies to a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound, New Zealand was to have 100 cents to a dollar. The protest ran on for years. As I remember, it was probably only exceeded in fiery debate and action by the Vietnam War and 1981 Springbok tour protests, both of which I support in hindsight. It is difficult to identify the main objection to the currency change, but one that springs to mind was the disrespect for our British heritage. It didn’t matter that the UK and Australia were also preparing to change. Another objection was that it was too American. People said that children would lose their mathematical skills because the new currency would be too easy to work with. Many people said that they would refuse to accept the new currency.  Inflation was another reason for opposing the new currency because half-pennies were going to disappear, and items priced at 11 pence would become 10 cents which was previously 12 pennies. The 1960s were comparatively good times economically for New Zealand, but people said it wasn’t the right time to change, and that it would cost millions of dollars (sorry pounds) to replace all the coins and banknotes. But in the end, the coins and notes were replaced as required over many years, and New Zealanders got on with life and other issues. 

 

Freddie Fuddpucker

Coming hard on the heels of decimal currency was the negotiations between New Zealand and Australia for a free trade agreement, which became known as CER (Closer Economic Relations). Of necessity the negotiations were conducted behind closed doors, but both governments were unfairly criticized for that. As it was every industry on both sides of the Tasman Sea wanted special consideration, and to negotiate publicly would have created a shambles that would have destroyed any possibility of agreement. Union leaders were particularly vocal in their conviction that unemployment would rise. The people of both countries were convinced that the other country would be the only one to gain any advantages.  But the politicians and departmental advisers beavered away for years before finally signing an agreement that did justice to the people of both countries. CER has been a success, and was a small step in the direction of trans-Tasman union, a future possible step that could also benefit both countries.

EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale) was created in the USA in 1981 as a secure and immediate system of payment using debit and credit cards. It was one of the greatest advances in retailing since the beginning of time, but it was bitterly opposed everywhere. In New Zealand the main objections included; it’s too American and the CIA is behind it, it will allow retailers and others to empty bank accounts with a simple zap of the card, and it will allow criminals access to your money. Most people said that they would refuse to have anything to do with EFTPOS. But by 1982 the first EFTPOS terminals were installed in New Zealand, and gradually the protesters faded away. Soon EFTPOS was so common that people started closing their cheque accounts, and even stopped carrying large amounts of cash. EFTPOS was an absolute winner, and today most people wouldn’t know how to shop without it.

The Tour Commentary

In the early part of the 20^th century, New Zealand was a small colony with a lot of insecurity. The British had already sent a strong message urging us to find our own way in the world. They sent us a flag with a small union flag in one corner along with the stars of the Southern Cross. In 1907 they went a step further with the passage of the Statute of Westminster (an Act officially bestowing independence). But New Zealanders, led by farmers, resisted. They wanted to stay British. Without British citizenship, families would be torn apart, farm produce would rot at the farm gate, and the country which considered itself more English than England would be plunged into bankruptcy. The people spoke and the government listened. It took another 40 years for the New Zealand government to finally ratify the Statute of Westminster (Dominion Day, 26 September 1947), but the event went almost unnoticed and our most important day constitutionally is not even a national holiday, nor was a new flag adopted in recognition of independence. Meanwhile, generations of Kiwis have been born, lived and have died without understanding that their country is fully independent. As a protest, the resistance to independence was highly successful. As an exercise in national esteem, it has been New Zealand’s greatest failure.

Of less constitutional significance, and now also largely forgotten in the mists of time, was the Middle Island Association of Dunedin, which in the 1870’s demanded separation of the South Island from the rest of New Zealand. The meetings, protest marches and demands to Parliament went on for years before the protesters gave up. Just as surely as Tasmania is Australia’s smallest and poorest state, if the Middle Islanders had got their way they would only have succeeded in creating two Tasmania’s. The Middle Island protest failed in every way possible, except perhaps that they may have created a lineage that now includes some Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement protesters, who time will prove are entirely on the wrong track. Some people are so anti-free trade that they don’t even like one town trading with another town.

Even the medical profession has not been above making out-of-step protests. A 1913 medical conference held in Auckland set up a committee to lobby the government about the dangers of educating girls.

Although largely forgotten now, and pretty much ignored at the time, was the sit-in peaceful protest of the Parihaka Maori in Taranaki in the 1870’s and 1880’s. It was their land, but the government and land-hungry white settlers wanted it too. So the government had 400 protesters arrested and imprisoned without trial for 16 months. Their descendants had to wait 130 years for redress in the form of compensation and an apology. The land was never returned to them. That protest was admirable, but largely futile.

Public pressure and protest action stirred the government of the day to hold a referendum on the sale of alcohol in 1911. The result was that 55% of New Zealanders wanted a total ban on alcohol sales, but the government had already set the bar at 60%, so the protesters failed nationally but achieved some local dry areas. The three-yearly liquor licencing poll became a permanent feature of general elections for almost 100 years, but gradually the support for prohibition slipped away and all areas eventually became wet again. Had the protesters succeeded, it would have just needed an Al Capone to move in, and the crime rate and drunkenness rate would have soared. It was a protest that was determined and well-meaning, but sadly lacking in sound reasoning.

In 1972, New Zealand’s Equal Pay Act became law, making women legally entitled to the same pay as men for the same work. But in spite of bitter opposition and protests by business leaders and male working-class voters, the National Government of the day pressed ahead. It was claimed that equality would put businesses into liquidation, destroy the economy and be detrimental to the status of working men. But in the end, life went on and the standard of living was raised a notch for everyone. However, it has to be said that even today there are still some pay inequities involving female workers.

In the post WWII years, there was a perceived ‘juvenile delinquency’ epidemic as a crime spree gripped the opinion maker’s imagination. The cry went out loud and strong to imprison the offenders for longer terms with hard labour and bread and water, and to put them in the military to give them some discipline and training. In 1949, Labour Prime Minister Peter Fraser finally acted by announcing a referendum on compulsory military training (CMT) for all males aged 18. The voters scooped up the opportunity (18 year-olds didn’t get a vote) and voted 77.9% in favour to 22.1% against. It was probably the most overwhelming vote ever affecting youth. But CMT did nothing to reduce crime and turned out to be one of New Zealand’s most expensive failures. A later Labour Government led by Norman Kirk, allowed CMT to slip quietly into oblivion. The protesters had been 100% wrong. However, in a footnote to the demise of CMT, people in the military were said to be ‘On Her Majesty’s Service’ and letters from the government carried the OHMS message on the envelope. But then there was a protest movement called OHMS which was Organisation to Halt Military Service, and they won their war without firing a single shot.

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After eight years in power (1949-1957) the National Government (Holland and Holyoake) lost power to Labour led by Walter Nash, the oldest person to hold the office of prime minister in New Zealand. After electing a Speaker, Nash had a majority in the House of only one seat. He had the very able Arnold Nordmeyer as his Minister of Finance, and Nordmeyer could see that some economic reforms were needed to keep the country on the straight and narrow. In his first budget, Nordie as he was known, increased the tax on tobacco and alcohol. There was immediate and widespread protest and Nordie is only remembered now for his 1958 Black Budget. At the next general election Keith Holyoake’s National Party was swept to power with 46 seats to Labour’s 34. The beer-drinking, cigarette-smoking protester got their way and defeated a government that had faced up to its responsibilities, in spite of the obvious repercussions that lay ahead.

Also, in the year of the Black Budget, New Zealand’s first supermarket, Foodtown, opened in Otahuhu, after locals protested to stop it going ahead. Fearing the effect on small businesses, many people said that they would refuse to shop at Foodtown, claiming that by a combined effort they could send it broke and put a stop to all future supermarkets. Needless to say, Foodtown quickly became New Zealand’s busiest shop and branches opened throughout the country. Since 1958 the number of owner operated shops, and the number of wage earners in retailing, has continued to outstrip population growth.

The introduction of television in 1960 tells a similar story. Thousands of people said they would refuse to buy a television, and if everyone did that, the problem would go away. They were probably the sons and daughters of the people who said they would refuse to have a telephone in the house.

Much has been written about French nuclear testing in the Pacific, the 1981 Springbok Rugby Tour, the sale of government assets, the Vietnam War, and many other issues and protests. For that reason they have not been included here. This is about other protests that were important in their own way, but are now largely forgotten.

Forgotten now, is the bail-out of Air New Zealand. The airline had been government owned from its inception in 1940, but in 2001 it was a public company listed on the stock exchange with many Kiwis holding small share parcels alongside corporate investors. But due to changing markets and some not so wise strategies, the airline hit head winds in 2001 and was in danger of collapse. The government of the day offered to buy into the company. They could see that a failed Air New Zealand would have ramifications beyond the airline itself, creating a domino effect that could cause a major economic downturn and large-scale unemployment. Almost to a man, the public were up in arms at the proposal. It was a waste of money. The airline should be allowed to fail. However, the Clark Government went ahead and acquired 75% of the increased capital of the airline at 25 cents a share and Air New Zealand survived to fly another day. However, the protesters were out in force again in 2014 when the Government sold part of its stake at $1.65 a share. To some people, government can do no right.

One of the longest and most bitter protests reached a peak in the 1970’s and 1980’s led by the unions and churches, unlikely bedfellows in the eyes of many. In 1936 it had become illegal to operate a retail business on a Saturday or Sunday. But with the introduction of supermarkets and generally larger retail shops, the movement to extend trading hours picked up some steam. The protesters came out in force declaring that weekend trading would spell the end of orderly society, workers’ rights, and about a million other lame reasons. In 1980, the law changed to allow shopping until midday on a Saturday, and in 1989 all day Saturday and Sunday became the rule. Now, the people who were going to boycott shops that changed to the new hours, can be seen filling the checkout lines in every shop and supermarket in the country.  Seven day shopping is now popular and convenient. But like so many other protests, before and after this protest, it is now conveniently forgotten.

As usual, when all the hoo-hah dies down, life goes on.

CANCER

Cancer is killing more people than ever before

Everyone knows someone affected by cancer, friends, relatives, the family next door. Everywhere people are dying from, or awaiting treatment for, the dreaded Big C. Everywhere, people speculate about the reason for the sudden rise in the number of cancer victims. Everywhere, the medical profession and drug companies are being criticised for failing to halt the rising rates of cancer, and are even accused of conspiracies and cover-ups that are allowing innocent people to die while they profit from the misery. More people, in desperation or from lack of trust, are turning to alternate healers and natural remedies.

Some people attribute rising cancer rates to lower standards of living, the pressure of modern-day life, climate change, pollution, insecticides, food ingredients, secret government missions to aerial spray populations with toxic chemicals, and so on. It seems that almost everyone has an explanation for the prevalence of the dreaded disease that is now one of the world’s biggest killers.

So what is the real truth about cancer? The answer lies in history, authentic research, and facts about the medical profession, changing life expectancy, and changing causes of death.

History reveals that humans are living longer now than ever before, and that the increased life expectancy is more universal than ever before. In the Neolithic Period (later Stone Age ending 10,000 years ago) the worldwide life expectancy from birth was just 20 years.  By the time of the Bronze Age (6,000 years ago) man could expect to live for 26 years on average from birth. In early modern England (1500-1700) Brits were doing better than many others around the world with a life expectancy 0f 37 years. By 1900, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica, the world life expectancy had reached 31 years. By 1950 it had risen to 48, and to 67 years in 2010.

From the above it could be expected that fewer people would be dying from a particular cause, such as cancer, rather than more, but that is not the case. More people are dying from cancer now than ever before. So let’s look at the causes of death and how they have changed over time.

From the earliest times until quite recently, infant mortality was one of the major causes of death. As recently as 1700 a third of all births worldwide led to death before the age of nine, due to malnutrition, disease, accidents and violence. This had a major impact on life expectancy in general.

The gap between rich and poor has always created an unequal life expectancy, both between rich and poor countries and between rich and poor families living in the same countries, and even in the same cities. Poverty comes with a high price. However, the Industrial Revolution changed the thinking of business leaders, politicians and social reformers to the extent that it was realized that if the masses were unable to purchase the goods that they produced, there wasn’t much point in having industry because there would be a scarcity of customers with money. While there is still a considerable gap between rich and poor, the gap is closing rather than widening as is popularly believed. The progressive closing of the gap is a major factor in increasing life expectancy.

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Medical science in the 20^th and 21^st centuries has made huge progress at a pace not unlike the progress of aviation and space exploration. The remedies and cures of 200 years ago often killed more patients than they saved. Surgery more often than not resulted in fatal infections of which there was no understanding. The discovery of germs is relatively recent.

Because of the advance of medical science and improved living standards, many common killers have been eliminated completely or are now extremely rare. Examples include smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis, typhoid, and diphtheria. Other diseases such as influenza, which killed an estimated 50 million in 1919-20, are now of a much lower incidence rate and are now rarely fatal. Improved hygiene, better housing and working conditions have also played a vital role in life expectancy.

We constantly hear criticism of peoples eating habits, but with freer trade and comparative economic security, more people are able to enjoy a more nutritional diet than at any other time in history. Even Alaskans now have access to bananas, and ice cream and refrigeration are available in the tropics. Life is good.

A study of war statistics for the last thousand years even shows a progressive decrease in the numbers killed as a result of war. The decrease has accelerated over the last 70 years since the end of WWII which killed 55 million. Fewer people, particularly young servicemen, are dying because of wars, and therefore getting a shot at old age.

Here’s a couple more things that are letting people live longer: Smoking is literally a dying habit with more and more people stopping smoking. Alcohol consumption is more controlled and responsible than in some previous centuries, when alcoholic addiction and drunkenness was the norm for millions of people, including those who could ill-afford it.

So, you may ask, what has all this got to do with cancer? Well, it’s pretty simple. Although cancer can kill the very young, it is primarily a disease of the elderly and it is proving one of the most difficult diseases to eliminate. Fortunately, only about 1% of deaths from cancer involve those aged under 15. In other words, the longer we live the more likely we are to have to face it. Many of the earlier big killers have been eliminated and that has opened the way for cancer later in life.

It is expected that as life expectancy increases, reported cancer cases will increase, possibly by up to 70% over the next 20 years. But an increasing proportion of those reported cases will survive into remission. The survival rate for some cancers is better than for others with high survival rates for breast, prostate and colon cancers. Meanwhile, pancreatic cancers have a much lower survival rate.

The essential fact about cancer is that there is more cancer in the world today, because we are able to avoid many of the things that previously would have killed us, and that leaves the tough one, the predominantly old-age disease, cancer. But even having regard to that, if cancer catches up with us, because of mainstream medical advances, we have a better chance of surviving it than ever before.

Meanwhile, medical quacks and magic remedy merchants are conning unfortunate cancer victims to the extent that they themselves are often a worse curse on society than cancer itself.

The Asker Trilogy

MH370 UPDATE

Saturday, 29 March 2014

WHAT HAPPENED TO MH 370

The likely B-777 scenarios are narrowing down to just one

When the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanished almost a month ago speculation was rife about its fate: Suicide, terrorism, criminal acts by passengers or crew, hostage taking, catastrophic structural failure (something that has never happened to a 777 in its 20 year history) were all on the table.

Although widely criticized as incompetent and dishonest, the authorities were wise to play their cards slowly while some form of criminality was considered highly likely. To do otherwise may have played right into the hands of those responsible. But the likelihood of criminal interference, or criminal actions by the pilots, are now receding.

Much news media mileage has been made of the captain’s flight simulator, but lots of pilots have their own simulator and many former pilots regularly ‘fly’ on a simulator. In my own case I’ve spent many hours on various Boeings including the 777. It’s not uncommon to indulge in flight activities that would be most unwise in the real aircraft. For example I sometimes simulate returning to the airport after all power is suddenly lost during climb out at 15,000 to 20,000 feet. Large jets are capable of gliding much further than many people would imagine.

Simulators, airline and private, have have done a lot to make flying safer. They keep pilots ahead of the game, and it’s my belief that the Malaysian pilots were right up with the game until fate took a hand. Every pilot worthy of the title will always fly with an instant action plan in mind to cover every possible emergency.

In the flight plan there may be only one alternate airport for diversion in the event that the destination cannot be used. But every minute of the flight the crew will always know the location of the nearest suitable landing place, and in a life and death emergency turning toward that airport will be the first priority.

We know now that shortly after the last communication the aircraft suddenly turned from a northerly heading to a south westerly heading on a course that would take it into the southern 

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Indian Ocean. But that heading also pointed the aircraft to a 13,000 foot runway in Malaysia that was closer than the departure airport.

The next actions should have been to start the descent and transmit a distress call. The rule is Aviate Navigate and Communicate, in that order. The autopilot would have been used to turn the aircraft onto the new heading and the altitude bug may have been turned off while the pilots selected a new flight level and rate of descent. But programming the autopilot may have been interrupted when the pilots were suddenly incapacitated.

The likely culprit must be decompression, poisonous fumes of some kind; a smoldering tire, or fumes from the consignment of troublesome batteries that were in the cargo hold. The fumes from those batteries can kill within 10 seconds.

So we have a situation where the aircraft is trimmed for the turn (slightly nose up) and is being flown partly manually and partly by autopilot. If the pilots are unconscious at the completion of the turn the aircraft will climb. This may explain why it climbed 10,000 feet above its assigned altitude. At 45,000 feet the 777 would be struggling to fly and left to its own devices the nose would drop quite steeply. As it gained airspeed again it would have leveled off and and started another climb. This may explain the sighting of a jet airliner flying low and fast over the Malaysian Peninsula around the time that MH 370 would have been crossing.

The process may have taken several oscillations before normal flight resumed on the new selected heading, possibly with the altitude increasing slowly as the fuel load burned off. It all depends on the actual settings for the autopilot; heading we can be fairly certain of, but airspeed, altitude and power settings will only ultimately be revealed when the black box is recovered. It is possible that the airspeed at the top of the climb may have been very close to the minimum airspeed to remain airborne, or close to the point of stall. 

When the aircraft ran out of fuel it is likely that one engine failed before the other and the asymmetric thrust at the low air speed would probably disengage the autopilot completely. The remaining engine would wind the aircraft into a graveyard spiral with the airspeed then increasing very rapidly.

The cockpit of a Boeing 777. The autopilot controls are at the top center of the panel

If the last engine failed a few seconds after the first it would make little difference. Once in the spiral without a conscious pilot at the controls the aircraft would in all probability disintegrate before hitting the sea.

In aviation anything is possible once. In most other fields of endeavor the same mistakes can happen over and over again, but aviation is different. Aviation learns from its mistakes. That is why flying is safe.

But that is no consolation for the victims and their loved ones. However, if my scenario is the correct one, then the suffering was probably very brief.

UPDATE
30th July 2015

Wreckage, possibly from MH370, has been found washed up on Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean, several thousand kilometres from the search area south west of Perth in Western Australia.

So, was the search being conducted in the wrong place? Possibly not. A study of the ocean currents tends to confirm that wreckage from the search area could indeed be carried on a circuitous route north, west and then south to the area of the find.

Indian Ocean currents/Wikipedia

If the wreckage found is confirmed as coming from MH370 then is can be expected that other wreckage may be scattered over a wide area of the ocean, the drift depending on shape and weight of individual items. For the flaperon to detach from the aircraft, the way it must have, indicates that there may be dozens, perhaps hundreds, of small pieces of wreckage, indicating a possible break-up in the air, possibly in a graveyard spiral after fuel exhaustion. 

This must be regarded as the most significant clue so far in the search for the missing airliner, and those on board.

PUNISHMENT

US Prison System is an Epic Failure and a Factory for Creating Criminals

By The Free Thought Project on July 24, 2015

(RT) — The mass incarceration policy in America over the last 40 years has created more problems than it has solved. The longer the term served, the higher the rate of reconvicted felons, a new study reveals.

The research from University of Michigan economics professor, Michael Mueller-Smith, has proven that prison terms don’t rehabilitate a criminal and turn them into a law-abiding citizen.

The US penal policy just doesn’t appear to be working. The criminal world is expanding, despite more and more criminals being incarcerated and isolated from society.

The American practice of imprisoning people for even the most trivial offences, not only ruins lives, but tends to act as a college for crime.

Up to 75 percent of former prisoners are rearrested within 5 years of their release date.

The study says that every year spent in prison increases the probability of a return to crime by 12.4 percent (5.6 percent a quarter). Also, those once accused of committing lesser crimes often go on to commit more serious offences after serving a term in prison.

Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/study-exposes-prison-system-epic-failure-factory-creating-criminals/#khkpzF5TV0awif7P.99

COMMENT

Prison as a form of punishment has been around for as long as organised government and the availability of written language, leading to the establishment of the first formal legal codes, the best known being the Code of Hammurabi of Babylon about 1750 BC. So imprisonment for criminal offending is not new and during over 3,000 years of universal and continuous use it has undergone only superficial reform.

New York's Sing Sing Prison

It is interesting to note that during this period the world crime rate reached its all-time high and even today’s crime rate cannot match that of 3,000 years ago. During this time the leading causes of death were starvation, murder, war and disease with an average life expectancy of less than 25 years. Slavery was normal and less than 50% of an average country’s population was in paid employment. The gap between rich and poor has never been so wide at any time since, and that is why crime was a problem. Crime was a means to survival.

The purpose of imprisonment has always been for punishment. Although at times rehabilitation and reformation have been of secondary importance, punishment has always been paramount. But in this situation punishment as a word should be interchangeable with revenge. But revenge has never worked in any context. Revenge creates more victims, more ill-feeling, more crime, and lowers the boom for everyone. Ask the Arabs and Israelis if revenge has ever done anything for them.  The reality of crime is that most criminals see themselves as victims too, and in many ways they are. Imprisonment does not reduce crime.

Prison buildings at Norfolk Island

The first truth about imprisonment is that it doesn’t work. The second truth about imprisonment is that there is a popular, but false, belief that it will work if the sentence is long enough and the conditions are harsh enough. The third truth about imprisonment is that politicians are elected to office with a promise to reduce crime be legislating for harsher penalties. But that is simply bait for gullible voters.

Many criminals are born into criminal families and sending them to prison will only help them recruit and train new members to the cause. Many criminals have personality disorders that attract them to violence and dishonesty, or by process of trial and error, it is the only life open to them, and long periods of incarceration will only exacerbate their disorders and lead to further offending.

It is a fact that a majority of prison inmates have either a psychiatric disorder, or a limited education, and are in prison because they were unable to cope in normal society. Removing them from society for an extended period will not inexplicably cure their disorder, and on regaining their freedom they will be even less likely to cope than before.

Prisoners in prison where crime breeds crime

The knee-jerk punishment people love to cry out for fewer privileges for prisoners, wanting phones, televisions, computers, heating, and nutritional food banned. They say that it is not punishment when prisoners are allowed those things. But if prisoners are to cope on the outside they will have a better chance of doing that, if they emerge healthy in a transition that is seamless.  They will also have a better chance of gaining legitimate employment if they are familiar with modern technology and have normal communication and social skills.

In many ways prison life has not changed significantly since the Middle Ages, when prisoners starved if family or friends failed to provide them with food, clothing and medical care. At the end of their sentences, if they were still alive, they were often not released if they, or their family, couldn’t pay the imprisonment fees. The punishment industry is barely more enlightened now, even though the public perception of it may be higher.

Prison has never been a safe place because most criminals are violent, and prisons are violent places. Non-violent criminals, and those who are innocent in prison or awaiting trial (or wrongfully convicted), are caught up in the violence also. Many people who know that there is violence in prisons will approve of it. “Give them a taste of their own,” they will say. Unfortunately, some people with that attitude become prison officers, and that makes them no better than the people they are supposed to be reforming.

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Prison reformers have been trying for centuries to persuade the public and politicians. But the public, most of whom have no idea of what it is like inside a prison, will not allow the politicians to get on with the job of introducing meaningful reforms that could reduce crime to levels not seen ever before. The public, and the victims and their families, will cry, “What about the victims?” This writer believes that most prison reformers are also concerned about the victims of crime, but they also understand that with less imprisonment, there will be fewer victims, inside and out.

The state of Pennsylvania in 1786 was one of the first places in the world to introduce public works employment for prisoners in the form of hard labour. It was thought that the hard labour would reform them, and the state would benefit from the free labour. Conditions included access only to religious literature, and a requirement live in complete silence. But crime didn’t reduce in Pennsylvania and concerned citizens who witnessed the abuse of forced-labour convicts helped change the Pennsylvania System.

In England, in the 1700s, crime had reached such epidemic proportions that the people demanded execution for more than 200 different crimes and excessive prison terms for lesser crimes, including the sentence ‘For the term of his or her natural life.’ The politicians complied.  But even with such an extreme regime the crime rate accelerated and the country faced a crises in prisoner accommodation.

So England shipped its over-crowded population to America where they served their hard labour sentences. After the American War of Independence, the USA refused to take any more convicts and for several years surplus prisoners were locked up aboard floating hulks around the coast. But still the crime rate was out of control. The British Government then looked to Australia and the first 700 convicts landed at Sydney Cove in 1788 to establish British rule in a convict colony. Convicts continued to arrive by the thousands for the next 80 years.

But the British convict colony experiment, other than creating a new nation, was a spectacular disaster in crime prevention. If the experiment had been successful then the United Kingdom, the USA and Australia would now be outstanding as having an almost zero crime rate, which they have not, by a long country mile.

On tiny Norfolk Island some hundreds of kilometres east of Australia, the most hardened criminals were held in appalling conditions until an enlightened prison commandant, Alexander Maconochie, took over in the 1830s from Commandant Morisset, the most extreme of all Britain’s punishment enforcers. Maconochie found the prisoners reduced to wrecks in body and spirit, many dead or dying from starvation and torture. Norfolk Island became known as Hell in Paradise. He freed them from confinement, fed them better food, treated them as equals and became their friend. The results were spectacular with some later returning to Sydney and others choosing to remain on Norfolk as free men. For these freed men the rate of recidivism was zero. But the enlightened Maconochie was replaced because he was too lenient.

Incarceration has a huge negative impact on society. It creates broken families, terminates employment, causes bankruptcy and generates further crime, victims and suffering. The moment a family breadwinner goes to prison, his children’s futures are also most likely condemned to a life of alternating between prison and struggling to survive on the outside.  The crime cycle can only be broken by removing the prison cycle and the prison industry.

With GPS monitoring there is no need for prisons in the conventional sense. Most prisoners, with few exceptions, will be reformed and rehabilitated without going anywhere near a prison. Community based sentences make much more sense. But if criminals must be confined for security or public safety reasons, they would benefit from a boutique family confinement system where the criminal’s family would live with the family of a corrections officer. The supervising families would have to be carefully selected and trained for the role as well as suitably remunerated. It wouldn’t be a job for prison officers as we know them now. These people would be examples of good family living and an example and guiding light to their customer families. They would be charged not just with turning around the life of an offender, but the whole family.

In 2012 America’s prison population reached 2.3 million for the first time and the prison cost was estimated at $75 billion. But the prison cost is only a fraction of the total cost of crime to society. Prison is not working as a deterrent, as a punishment, or as a means of rehabilitation. The system is over 3,000 years out of date, and it is a sheer waste of time and money.

Only a radical new approach to this problem can succeed. At the very least criminals need to be placed with people who will befriend them and set them an example that will turn their lives around. Putting them with other criminals is totally and absolutely counter-productive. History proves it.