OT - lock 'em up?
I'm (temporarily) sick of writing about cricket. I suspect some may be sick of reading about it. And I know some of you don't want to read in true FIGJAM-style about how 1.61 and 1.65 for Australia in the last two Ashes tests was the most generous act since the feeding of the five thousand.
So something completely different. Reading the Herald today and I'm informed that an armed killer is on the loose in Wellington. Good. About time that city had a bit of excitement. But what gets up my goat is the fact that an ex-prisoner on the loose is an excuse for the redneck society to express their unwavering belief that anyone who has committed a heinous crime should be locked away for ever and the key thrown away:
The case has sparked outrage at the granting of parole to a convict such as Burton
Look, the guy is a badass, no question. But fair suck of the sav Trev, he's spent 13 years in prison (less 11 days when he broke out of our supposed maximum security prison) and 13 years is an average price that murderers have paid to our community for the taking of a fellow life.
So in some respects Mr Burton is entitled to a chance to show he can now be a fine upstanding citizen. The fact that he has fucked up this chance is irrelevant - yes, now he should return to behind bars and the key thrown away. But that is not an excuse to say with wonderful hindsight he should not have been given that chance in the first place. There are plenty of examples where badasses have left prison and actually got on with life without attracting the (further) attention of the Police.
The real problem in this country is with our supervision of released prisoners. In the case of Mr Burton, the reommendation was for "carefully managed release under close supervision". Yeah, right. Our Probation Service has as much chance of doing that as I have of running a marathon tomorrow.
If the rednecks redirected their energy to complaining about underperforming public services, our little corner of the world might be a better place.
So something completely different. Reading the Herald today and I'm informed that an armed killer is on the loose in Wellington. Good. About time that city had a bit of excitement. But what gets up my goat is the fact that an ex-prisoner on the loose is an excuse for the redneck society to express their unwavering belief that anyone who has committed a heinous crime should be locked away for ever and the key thrown away:
The case has sparked outrage at the granting of parole to a convict such as Burton
Look, the guy is a badass, no question. But fair suck of the sav Trev, he's spent 13 years in prison (less 11 days when he broke out of our supposed maximum security prison) and 13 years is an average price that murderers have paid to our community for the taking of a fellow life.
So in some respects Mr Burton is entitled to a chance to show he can now be a fine upstanding citizen. The fact that he has fucked up this chance is irrelevant - yes, now he should return to behind bars and the key thrown away. But that is not an excuse to say with wonderful hindsight he should not have been given that chance in the first place. There are plenty of examples where badasses have left prison and actually got on with life without attracting the (further) attention of the Police.
The real problem in this country is with our supervision of released prisoners. In the case of Mr Burton, the reommendation was for "carefully managed release under close supervision". Yeah, right. Our Probation Service has as much chance of doing that as I have of running a marathon tomorrow.
If the rednecks redirected their energy to complaining about underperforming public services, our little corner of the world might be a better place.
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posted by Rob Crawford at 12:00 PM
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