Re: [pf] Restorative Justice: Green political activity.

Thanks for sending this on, David and Jeremy,
    Can you elaborate a bit more on the issue?  I am gathering from the post
that the trend is toward warehousing people in institutions, similar to the
trend here.  That in New Zealand, as here, prisoners are being punished
rather than being healed.

    Apparently Matt Robeson is an advocate for restorative treatment -
healing - for prisoners, but is not a Green.  There is disagreement among
the Greens about whether to support him or not - whether he espouses enough
of Green policy to be supported.  Some say yes because of his position on
restorative treatment, and others say no, because he supports large prisons?
Is this correct?

    What other recommendations do Greens make for those convicted of crimes?
    Where are the laws in regards to drug use?  Are they different according
to the type of drug?  What about marijuana?  What about alcohol?

                        Jill


    But that
----- Original Message -----
From: David MacClement <davd@ihug.co.nz>
To: Positive Futures list <positive-futures@igc.topica.com>
Cc: Jeremy Hall <jhall@kiwilink.co.nz>
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2001 4:27 PM
Subject: [pf] Restorative Justice: Green political activity.


> · for Pos Fut: More on how politics goes, in New Zealand.   D.
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> -----Original Messages-----
> >Jeremy Hall <jhall@kiwilink.co.nz> wrote, to GreenViews-NZ::
> >> I did vote ... for Matt Robson.  I think his efforts in the
> >> restorative justice field have been unsupported by almost everyone,
> >> and especially the media.  It's an area that I support cross-party
> >> backing for.  It would be political suicide for the Greens to
> >> support him vocally right now, but support for his stands by
> >> individuals and groups would be a good start. Mine was the only
> >> vote for him! [in the NZ Herald's New_Zealander_of_the_year awards]
> >
> At 19:52 8/1/2001 +1300, Bruce Thorpe wrote:
> >I think it would be sustainable for the Greens to speak up for
> >restorative justice. A lot of the anger among the public is because
> >the judicial system seems so indifferent to the fears and outrage
> >that many victims quite legitimately want addressed.
> >Matt Robson would never get a vote from me, except for Muddled Coward
> >of the year, as long as he supports corrections bureaucrats in their
> >efforts to establish large scale imprisonment institutions in
> >low status areas like Kaikohe and South Auckland.
> >We need leadership from the minister of justice in the direction of
> >human scale facilities in areas where there are the resources to
> >provide the treatment and resocialising experiences our criminals
> >need if they are to have a human future.
> >We do not need headlines about conjugal visits when the typical inmate
> >of our imprisonment system does not even have an adequate literacy level.
> >
>
> At 10:52 9/1/2001 +1300, Roland Sapsford <.-.-.@parliament.govt.nz> wrote:
>
> Hi;
> Just thought I'd drop in and say the Greens have done and said quite a lot
> on restorative justice this year, including on very unpopular subjects.
>
> The research unit and Nandor Tanczos have put quite a lot of effort into
> this area, developing ideas and attending conferences and Nandor still has
> a bill in the ballot for wiping minor convictions after five years.
>
> However our views are very hard for those not deeply involved to
> distinguish from the views of Matt Robson and hence Nandor has had little
> media coverage.  Also, those groups working in the area see Matt Robson as
> the key politician in this area.  Any coverage tends to be reactive and
> even then we are often omitted as the media sees it as a
> Robson/Goff/Ryall/Hide issue.
>
> We have tentatively reached the view that we are better off trying to
> engage with Matt behind the scences rather than claim some of this issue
> for the Greens.  We may be able to achieve some things this way, although
> we won't get public credit for it.
>
> The most effective visible Green contribution for now will probably be
> local people taking an active interest and writing letters - we have had
> relatively little media interest over the year at national level, despite
> some fairly intense work at times (eg over prison education).
>
>
> Cheers
> Roland
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> sent on to Positive Futures by David.
> (David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz
> http://www.geocities.com/davdd.geo/index.html#top
> *************************************************
>
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