High priced Crown Prosecutors rorting the system

There are two kinds of criminal cases – serious ones which lead to trial by jury – and less serious ones which are heard in front of a judge. The vast majority fall into the latter category and are prosecuted by the Police in the District Courts. With serious crimes like murder and rape, police conduct the initial investigation, but the process of prosecution is farmed out to high-flying solicitors in private law firms. These are the prosecuting elite – known as Crown Solicitors – and they charge like wounded bulls.

Like everything else, their fees have been going up – by 60% in the last five years. So in 2011, the Government announced a review of funding provided to the Crown Law Office which is responsible for paying these cowboys. The review was conducted by John Spencer, chair of KiwiRail and deputy chair of the Legal Services Agency. Under the headline Fears for justice after cost cutting, the Dominion Post reports that as a result of Mr Spencer’s review, funding for Crown Law will be cut by 25%. That sounds reasonable to me.

But not to Crown Solicitor Simon Moore, QC, who described the cutbacks as potentially “catastrophic”. One suspects he may have been referring to a likely cut in his personal income rather than any possible decline in the efficiency of the prosecutorial service – although other Crown prosecutors joined in the wailing and claimed that cut backs will lead to backroom deals and shorter sentences. Garth McVicar of the so-called Sensible Sentencing Trust sang the same old song and said the cutbacks would undermine “the integrity of the entire justice system”.

The Dominion Post story ignored some key facts.

One: Prosecutions are conducted by both the police and the Crown Law Office at a total cost of about $75 million a year. The police prosecute around 200,000 offenders a year at a cost of about $35 million. There is no cut in funding for this. Crown Law prosecutes only 8,600 cases a year for about the same cost. In other words, police prosecutions provide much better value than Crown Law for the same amount of money. Admittedly, Crown Law deals with the more serious cases, but they represent only 4% of all prosecutions – so their impact on the overall implementation of ‘justice’ is negligible.

Two: However, their impact on the cost is significant. Crown Law has a tendency to waste millions of taxpayer dollars on high profile cases which push up the overall cost. For instance they wasted over $1 million prosecuting David Bain – who turned out to be innocent. Crown Law money was effectively thrown down the toilet because of ‘egregious errors’ made by police. Another $3 million was wasted prosecuting 17 defendants following the Urewera raids – with only four convicted on fire arms charges mainly because of ‘illegal surveillance’ by police. The case against Kim Dotcom is turning into a similar financial fiasco.

Part of the problem is that Crown Law does not carry out adequate oversight of these prosecutions. In his report, John Spencer commented that “the Solicitor General has a relatively ‘hands off’ role in performance management” and that he “has no clear mandate to control the indictable prosecution policy”.

Three: Making matters worse, Crown Law uses an unaudited invoicing system which is open to widespread abuse. According to Mr Spencer, the Crown Law Office does not require the Crown Solicitors to declare how many hours they actually charge for. His report said: “Crown Law was unable to provide any kind of summary of the actual hours spent on matters and/or the time claimed and paid for. Nor did it have records relating to the split of hours worked by the different levels of counsel within the Crown Solicitor network”.

The last sentence refers to the fact that senior solicitors charge Crown Law at substantially higher rates than junior lawyers who may do much of the donkey work. But Crown Law has no auditing mechanism in place to verify which lawyer did what.

Spencer also found regional variations whereby a Crown Solicitor in one region will charge twice as much as a Solicitor in a different region for a similar kind of case. Despite these massive discrepancies, Crown Law pays all invoices with no questions asked. Mr Spencer described this cosy arrangement between the Crown Law Office and the Crown Solicitors as an ‘honesty process’ but grudgingly admitted it was ‘far from transparent’.

Gigantic rort

Mr Spencer’s report is also far from transparent. When Margaret Bazley reviewed the legal aid system, and heard that defence lawyers were asking clients for ‘top ups’, she said they were ‘rorting the system’. Crown Prosecutors are doing the same thing every time they submit an invoice to the Crown Law Office without declaring how many hours they worked. Unfortunately, Mr Spencer didn’t have the courage to name this for what it is – a gigantic rort.

It’s a real shame Dame Bazley wasn’t asked to conduct the review. With an astute turn of phrase, she can turn a garden trowel into a shovel or an office into a ‘carboot’. If she had been asked to review what the Crown Solicitors are doing, she would have called them what they are – out of control, corporate gold diggers.

Judith Collins’ staff censoring wikipedia articles on justice issues in NZ?

Earlier this year, I was interviewed by Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon. This was in response to revelations in the NZ Herald that the police have seized nearly $150 million worth of homes, cars, boats, cash, jewellery and other valuables under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act. When the legislation was passed in December 2009, the Government said the seizures would be used to fund additional alcohol and drug treatment for criminal offenders. Four years later, no money has been made available.

RadioNZ wanted to interview the Minister of Justice, Judith Collins, to ask her why none of the money had been passed on. She wasn’t available so they interviewed me instead. After the interview, the producer came up to me and said that someone from Judith Collins’ office had made it very clear to them that, even though she was not available, Collins did not want them to talk to me. When the producer asked her why, Collins said it was because she didn’t approve of articles I had edited on wikipedia about the New Zealand justice system.

Banned from editing Wikipedia

I found it hard to believe that Judith Collins would really be concerned about anything on wikipedia – until I found edits being made by someone calling herself JC press sec. Most editors on wikipedia use pseudonyms – but ‘JC press sec’ – that was just too obvious. Then there’s Clarke43. Whoever he (or she) is, Clarke43 has also done a lot of editing on the Judith Collins page on wikipedia and has systematically deleted much of the material I contributed to other articles. On a personal discussion page (known as a Talk page) Clarke43 wrote: “I don’t feel for the sake of anyone who uses wikipedia that we can leave some of these pages in the state they are in now.” Is Judith Collins using taxpayers’ money to get her staff to edit wikipedia articles to her liking?

Then I got banned from editing wikipedia altogether. Shortly after that most of the pages that I had contributed to were shredded. An article I wrote on Legal Aid in New Zealand was shortened from this comprehensive version to this short stub. A detailed article on the Sensible Sentencing Trust and its links with National and the Act Party was shortened from this to this. Substantial cuts have also been made to articles about the New Zealand Police, the Department of Corrections, the Independent Police Conduct Authority, the Government Communication Security Bureau, Crime in New Zealand, Corruption in New Zealand, the Ministry of Justice, the Accident Compensation Corporation and David Bain. For obvious reasons, these are all articles that Judith Collins might have an interest in.

Banned by prison manager

It looks like someone is trying to shut me up. Even the manager at Rimutaka prison is having a go. Here’s the story. I’ve been going into Rimutaka prison for 15 years. Normally when I have to see an inmate, I make an appointment and then show my driver’s licence at the gatehouse. About three months ago, one of the officers on duty commented that because I was a regular visitor, I should apply for a Special Visitor’s pass. So I did.

This should have been a routine matter. But to my surprise, about six weeks later I received a letter from Chris Burns, the Prison Manager. He said my application for the Special Visitors ID was declined because of a story which appeared in the Upper Hutt Leader in which I criticized the Department for wasting $13 million on cell phone blocking technology. The article pointed out that the number of cell phones confiscated from prisoners had more than doubled since the technology was installed. It contained this brief quote: “Drug and alcohol counsellor Roger Brooking, who helps inmates at Wellington prisons, said jamming technology had not stopped prisoners from using cellphones in prison and described the project as a ‘failed strategy’.”

I thought New Zealanders had freedom of speech – according to the Bill of Rights we do. But Judith Collins and Chris Burns don’t seem to think so. Mr Burns declined my application for being “critical of the way the Department operates in regard to stopping prisoners using cell phones in prison”. How bizarre. But guess what. Information about the failure of the cell phone blocking technology was then deleted from the wikipedia page about the Corrections Department. This is called censorship!

But what I really want to know is – how does Judith Collins know what I’m doing on wikipedia? I don’t use my real name – I use a pseudonym. Does that mean the GCSB is watching me? No that’s illegal – and surely the GCSB would never break the law. Yeah right!

Join the discussion at The Standard: Collins sanitising wikipedia

Dead prisoners don’t complain about their medical treatment

In April 2013, the Dominion Post ran a story about the appalling medical treatment in prison of Stephen McMurtrie. McMurtrie injured his shoulder working out in the prison yard. He was sent to hospital for an x-ray where he was told he would need an operation. They gave him opiate pain medication (tramadol) and told to come back for the operation in a month.

No you can’t have pain relief

Corrections management doesn’t like prisoners having opiates – no matter how much pain they’re in. They even made up a ‘Medicines Policy’ to discourage prison doctors from prescribing opiates, benzodiazepines and other drugs with potential for abuse. So when Mr McMurtrie returned to prison, the prison doctor took him off the tramadol and replaced it with voltaren and ibuprofen.

Over the next five days, Mr McMurtrie became increasingly unwell. The nurses ignored him. Eventually a prison officer took him to see the prison doctor. When he got there, he vomited up a couple of litres of blood and collapsed on the floor. The doctor called an ambulance and Mr McMurtrie was taken to hospital in a coma. He spent two weeks in intensive care and nearly died. He was handcuffed to an officer for the entire two weeks – even though he was unconscious. Altogether, he spent five weeks in hospital before he was well enough to go back to prison.

Voltaren is known to cause gastrointestinal bleeding in some patients. It should not be taken by patients with liver cirrhosis, ulcers, or an infection. Mr McMurtrie had all three of these conditions. Three months later, Mr McMurtrie is still not able to walk properly and is now in a significantly reduced state of health.

No you can’t have another mattress

Here’s another tragic case. William Allen is 44 years old and was sent to prison for possession of cannabis. When he was 19, his ankle was crushed when he was run over by a truck. It never healed properly and since then Mr Allen has had over 50 operations on his leg. It took seven years before the leg was strong enough so that he could walk again. His most recent operation was in 2012, one week before he was sentenced to prison on his current offending. Surgeons cut the leg open and put antibiotic pellets inside the bone. He was on an antibiotic drip for a week afterwards and the dressings had to be changed every day. He was given morphine to cope with the pain.

He was sentenced to prison the day after he was discharged from hospital. Once in prison, nursing staff didn’t bother to change the dressings on his wounds as required; it began to smell, increasing the risk of external infection, on top of the internal bone infection. Mr Allen gets only half the pain medication he is allowed; the medication that he does receive is given to him too early in the day with the result that he gets pain at night and doesn’t get much sleep. He can’t even get comfortable. He sleeps on a mattress which is only two inches thick – on a concrete base. He asked for a second mattress to provide some relief – but that was denied. It seems prison management want him to suffer.

Mr Allen has also missed follow-up appointments with infection specialists in the community because prison staff are too busy to take him – or just don’t care. After 12 months in prison, he is still on two different antibiotics. If the infection spreads, he could die. His leg is permanently twisted and he has been told he needs yet another operation so he is thinking about having the leg amputated instead. Mr Allen wrote a letter of complaint to the Health & Disability Commission – but the prison opened it up, didn’t like what he wrote and never sent it.

Complaints up by over 60%

Potentially there are three agencies prisoners can complain to about their medical treatment in prison – the Corrections Inspectorate, the Health & Disability Commission or the Ombudsman. There’s not much point in complaining to Corrections Inspectors. In 2012 the Department’s Annual Report showed that very few complaints were made to the Inspectorate about prison health services. Of those that were made, not one was found to be ‘justified’. The obvious conclusion is that prisoners complain to external agencies rather than complain to the Inspectorate because they know the Inspectorate will not investigate their complaints properly.

I wrote to the Health & Disability Commission asking how many complaints they receive from prisoners each year – but they claimed they don’t keep records on that. The Ombudsman was more helpful. In 2011 the Ombudsman received 259 complaints about prison health services. In 2012, there were 418 complaints – up 62% in just one year. Of course these complaints come from the prisoners that are still alive. They ones that die don’t bother and since 2008, 75 prisoners have died. Not surprisingly, not one of them made a complaint about their medical treatment.

New concerns about human rights in New Zealand prisons

The Corrections Department is trying to spruce up its image and has added some new pages to its website. One of those pages is called: Human rights in NZ prisons. In the first line under this heading, the Department makes this observation: “We make sure that prisoners in New Zealand are contained humanely.”

Bearing in mind that the suicide rate in New Zealand prisons is 11 times higher than the rate in the community, that’s a very dubious statement – one which is contradicted by almost every posting on this blog.

The Department goes on to say: “We operate in accordance with the Corrections Act 2004 and Corrections Regulations 2005. The Sentencing Act 2002 and the Parole Act 2002 also have particular relevance to our operations.”

Although the new page on Corrctions website is supposedly about the human rights of prisoners, it doesn’t even mention the New Zealand Bill of Rights or the Human Rights Act . How can the Corrections Department seriously expect anyone to believe it is in the least bit concerned about human rights and the safe containment of prisoners when it doesn’t even acknowledge these two fundamental pieces of legislation have any bearing on its operations?

Criticism of sensible sentencing trust deleted from wikipedia

In the last 18 months, I have made numerous edits to Wikipedia articles on justice issues in New Zealand. In May 2013, I was banned from further editing – it seems they don’t like my perspective. Since then other editors have deleted many of the contributions I have made to a range of different articles. The following information was deleted from the Wikipedia article about the sensible sentencing trust.

McVicar For the last ten years or so, Garth McVicar has been a polarising figure in New Zealand politics. While he is supported by some victims and their families, he has been criticised in the media and lambasted on chat forums.Columnist Richard Boock has pointed out that McVicar’s public statements are often contradictory and wrote: “What McVicar stands for isn’t really clear, but it certainly has nothing to do with justice.” Some commentators doubt that the SST actually helps the victims it claims to support. Justice reformer, Kim Workman, believes that when victims get caught up in the rhetoric of the Sensible Sentencing trust, they…

“become trapped in their grief by the Trust and are unable to ever reach peace. These victims are being fed with this retributive agenda from McVicar and from politicians trying to oust one another to be tough on crime. It’s just alienating and full of hate. It’s not helpful at all.”

Offenders are also victims

The Trust’s call for harsher sentences has been criticised by justice sector professionals on a number of grounds. The first is that there is no clear delineation between victims and offenders. Tony Paine, CEO, Victim Support points out that…

“the social and demographic indicators that identify those who are most likely to be victimized are identical to the markers for those likely to be offenders. The life stories and cultural contexts that weave victims and offenders together (often within the same person) make any artificial separation between offenders and victims just that: an artifice that oversimplifies our complex world.”

The single greatest predictor of youth offending is prior victimisation and thousands of New Zealanders are transformed annually from child victims into young offenders.

Penal populism

Garth McVicar’s willingness to publicly criticise the justice system has led to an increase in the public’s fear of crime and more politicians competing to be “tough on crime” – a process described by criminologists as penal populism. All too often New Zealand journalists have been lured into phoning McVicar for a quote, rather than investigating the latest research in penal policy, or talking to criminologists and justice sector experts, about what actually works. Kim Workman has written: Workman

“The Trust and its spokespeople have become new kinds of experts, whose knowledge is based not on formal learning and research, but on anecdote, common sense and newspaper headlines: a form of expertise that suits the news making requirements of the contemporary media.”

In the process, the media generally ignore researchwhich shows a continuing decline in reported crime rates as well as international perceptions that New Zealand is already regarded as a safe society.

Perversion of justice

Legal theorists argue that the populist goal of a crime free society is a utopian dream. French criminologist, Denis Salas, says societies driven by penal populism develop an insatiable demand for more and more punitive laws in pursuit of a society where there is no risk – and this leads to a “perversion of justice“. Chief Justice, Dame Sian Elias, has also expressed concerns about tougher sentencing and believes that New Zealand has developed a “pervasive culture of blame” and that more punitive sanctions have not made New Zealand any safer. In her Blameless Babes speech at Victoria University in 2009 she said:

“The responsibility (of the probation service) to manage risk… is conducted against a public unwillingness to accept that risk cannot be eliminated.”

Growing prison population

The “tough on crime” policies advocated by the Trust have contributed to New Zealand’s growing prison population. In December 2011, New Zealand’s rate of imprisonment was 190 inmates per 100,000 of populationgiving the country one of highest rates of imprisonment among western democracies. Prison numbers have increased so rapidly that in the last ten years, the Corrections Department has had to build five new prisons and according to Finance Minister, Bill English, Corrections will soon be the biggest government department in the country. In 2011, Mr English said repeatedly that New Zealand was facing the biggest deficit in its history,that prisons were “a fiscal and moral failure” and we couldn’t afford to build any more.

Ineffectiveness of deterrence

The problem is that longer sentences do not deter criminal offending. In 2001 the Corrections Department released a policy document called About Time quoting the result of 50 international studies involving over 300,000 offenders. It said:

“None of the analyses found imprisonment reduced recidivism… Longer sentences were associated with an increase in offending.”

Longer sentences not only fail to deter offending, such policies are expensive to implement. Each prisoner costs the taxpayer $90,000 per year and Corrections annual budget is over $1 billion a year placing a growing burden on the taxpayer.

Pratt In an interview with Time magazine in 2010, criminologist, Professor John Pratt of Victoria University made the point that the more a society spends on their prison system, the less they tend to spend on education, health and social security. At the same time, by focussing solely on increasing prison sentences to bring about a ‘safe’ society, the Sensible Sentencing Trust ignores international evidence that reducing income inequality in New Zealand is what really needs to be addressed. This is supported by an OECD report called “Divided we stand” which points out that since the mid-1980s, the gap between New Zealand’s rich and poor has grown faster than in any other developed country. One can only conclude that there is nothing sensible at all about Garth McVicar and the so-called sensible sentencing trust.

Prison suicides swept under the Cornerstone

The suicide rate in New Zealand prisons is eleven times higher than in the general population – and since 2008, more than 75 prisoners have died . This self-destructive slaughter has much to do with high rates of mental health problems combined with poor quality psychiatric care in prison. Doctors and nurses who treat prisoners are simply unable to provide an equivalent level of care to that received by patients in the community. In 2011, the Ombudsman called this a “serious concern” and recommended responsibility for healthcare of prisoners should be removed from the Corrections Department and given to district health boards.

Prison managers don’t like that idea as it might lead to a small loss of control over their caged in kingdom. The Department would rather paper over the cracks by having its 19 prison health centres awarded Cornerstone accreditation. Cornerstone is a seal of approval granted by the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners to health and medical centres that meet a defined set of standards called Aiming for Excellence – standard for New Zealand general practice.”

The standards for ‘general practice’

In order to meet the standards, a health centre first has to meet the definition of “general practice”. The RNZCGP has 12 criteria which define general practice. The first is that the centre must provide “personal, family and community oriented comprehensive primary care…” That should rule out every prison health centre in the country – since none of them are ‘family or community oriented’. The treatment is not exactly ‘personal’ either – which medication prisoners receive is dictated by Corrections’ Medicines Policy which states that doctors are ‘discouraged’ from prescribing opiate pain killers (like morphine and tramadol), anti-anxiety medications (such as valium), sleeping pills like zopiclone and mood stabilisers like ritalin – because these are considered drugs of abuse.

The second criterion is that the health centre must provide ‘open and unlimited access to its users…” That should also exclude every prison health centre – since prisoners don’t have open and unlimited access to anything. Despite the fact that prison health centres do not appear to meet any of the criteria for a ‘general practice’, five prisons in the country have been granted Cornerstone accreditation. What’s more, Corrections is aiming to have all 19 prison health centres in the country accredited in the next two and a half years.

Suicides at Otago prison

The health centre in Otago Corrections Facility (OCF) is one of the five. How did that happen when the Department’s own ranking system puts Otago prison at the bottom of its’ performance ratings. Health care in Otago prison is so poor that about two years ago, two prisoners died within three months of each other. Richard Barriball was a victim of Corrections ‘discouraged’ medication policy; they took away his methadone, his tramadol and his diazepam. In severe pain from a serious arm injury, he committed suicide a week later. The coroner said the prison failed “to provide delivery of prescribed pain relief” and that Mr Barriball received “sub optimal care”.

Jai Davis died in OCF in February 2011. He came in over the weekend – when the prison doctor was off duty – suspected of ‘internally concealing’ drugs. He should have been taken directly to hospital to be examined, x-rayed, and monitored. Instead, he was taken to OCF which is 45 minutes’ drive from the nearest hospital. He was placed in the at risk unit where he was supposed to be observed every 15 minutes. No one bothered to call the doctor – the nurses just ignored him and he died two days later.

These deaths were described as suicides, so at the time, police never bothered to investigate. Soon afterwards, the Otago Daily Times reported that the health centre at the prison was given Cornerstone accreditation. Prison nurse Jan Horne was quoted in the story saying that accreditation “put the health centre and the staff on par with other medical centres around the country”. Yeah right! But that’s Corrections plan for suicides in prison – get the RNZCGP to rubber stamp the process and hide the bodies under Cornerstone accreditation.

The process of accreditation

Why does the RNZCGP collude with the Corrections Department in this cover up? I contacted the College and asked how the accreditation process works. I was told that when the College evaluates a prison health service, no one actually talks to any prisoners; no one asks whether they are satisfied with the service; no one finds out how many complaints have been made; no one contacts the Health and Disability Commission to find out if any complaints have been investigated; no one contacts the Ombudsman to see if prisoners complain about health care more than any other aspect of prison life; no one even asks if any prisoners being treated by the prison health centre have died recently.

But there is a process – prisoners can make a written complaint. Great – except that 90% of prisoners can barely read and write. And there is a box to put the complaints into. Great – provided the nurses don’t throw the complaint in the bin. So there is a process – and as far as RNZCGP is concerned, that box is ticked. But prisoners are still dying. When they do, the box is a really big one – it’s called a coffin.

Nurse suspended on full pay for 18 weeks for giving a prisoner Raro

Emily Wilson has been a nurse for 30 years. In 2009 she took a job at a prison – in the health unit at Otago Corrections Facility (OCF). She described a litany of unethical and disrespectful behaviour by certain nurses at the OCF that went on in the two years she was there.

The green chit strategy

According to Nurse Wilson, some nurses at OCF went out of their way to make life difficult for prisoners. One strategy involved green chits. When prisoners want to see a doctor, they have to fill in a green form – known as a chit. They describe their health problem on the chit and place it in a box. Each morning officers give the chits to the nurse on duty – bearing in mind, nurses are the gatekeepers to the doctor. If the nurse on duty didn’t like a particular prisoner, she would rip up his chit and throw it in the bin. He wouldn’t get to see the doctor – no matter how serious his health problem was.

Sometimes this nearly had fatal consequences. Wilson described one prisoner at OCF who got really sick and had acute stomach pain. He filled in the chits four days in a row. The nurses ignored him and told him to ‘toughen up’. His condition deteriorated to the point that eventually the prison officers became concerned. Because the nurses wouldn’t help, the officers carried the prisoner over to the health centre in a golf cart. That got the prison doctor’s attention; he called 111 immediately and the man had to be taken to hospital where he was found to have a burst appendix and septicaemia (blood poisoning). He survived – but only just – and only because untrained prison officers realised it was a life threatening situation. If it had been left up to the nurses, he would have died.

Denial of medication strategy

Another strategy used to inflict pain on prisoners is to deny them access to prescribed pain medication. This strategy was used with fatal consequences on one prisoner who committed suicide in Otago prison in 2010. While in the community, Richard Barriball needed three operations on his arm and, after the third, was still in severe pain. He was prescribed four different pain killers by hospital specialists; two were opiates and another was a benzodiazepine – all three of which are addictive. However, the Corrections Department discourages prison doctors from prescribing medications which are addictive. So when Barriball was remanded in prison on minor offending, he was taken off all three within a few days.

In pain and withdrawal, he hung himself a few days later. In his report into his death, the coroner wrote: “The causes of the death and the circumstances of the death of Richard Barriball have shown suboptimal care by OCF… (including) the failure of OCF to provide delivery of prescribed pain relief …”

Suspended over Raro

Nurse Wilson was appalled at the way Barriball was treated. On one occasion when she showed compassion to another prisoner, they used the incident to suspend her. Wilson had only been at the prison a few months when an alcoholic man was brought in. He was suffering from dehydration and withdrawal symptoms and was so disoriented, he was placed in the at risk unit to detox. The prisoner was so confused, he started drinking out of the toilet. Wilson spoke with the two officers on duty and the three of them decided to get him some clean drinking water. One of the officers washed out a milk container and filled it with water and then Wilson poured half a sachet of Raro into it.

They went back to the prisoner, gave him some valium (used to assist alcoholics detox) with the Raro flavoured water and he ‘skulled it’. A few days later, Wilson was called into the health manager’s office and told to pack her things immediately. She was suspended for giving the prisoner Raro (which was not an approved item for prisoners) and was off work on full pay for the next 18 weeks. The Department conducted an extensive investigation into this apparent breach of policy which ran to 238 pages. It concluded that Wilson had breached section 141 of the Corrections Act 2004 which says “every person commits an offence who… delivers anything, or causes it to be delivered, to any prisoner inside a prison”. Corrections management twisted this regulation to include Raro flavoured water given to assist a dehydrated prisoner to stop him drinking out of the toilet.

A couple of days after Wilson was suspended, the prisoner had to be taken to hospital – suffering from severe dehydration. It seems Corrections aren’t keen on showing kindness to inmates. They prefer to wait till it’s an emergency and then call an ambulance (at taxpayer’s expense), rather than break the Raro rules.

Officers ‘justified’ in suffocating suicidal prisoner to death – the case of Nicholas Harris

The coroner’s report into the death of Nicholas Harris in Waikeria prison last year was released recently. In the process of trying to stop him from committing suicide, six or more prison officers held him down and restrained him – till he suffocated to death.

Harris had only been in prison a few days and was being held on remand. He had recently been released from a psychiatric hospital but his mental health problems which were not picked up by prison staff at the intake assessment. The coroner found that: “The assessment of Mr Harris fell short of the national requirement. In particular, the Principal Corrections Officer and the nurse who consulted on that assessment did not make enquiries relating to Mr Harris’ mental state.”

On the morning of January 9, 2011 a staff member issued a “code blue” when CCTV footage showed he was planning to kill himself. Officers entered the cell with the intention of relocating him to the “at risk unit” where he could be monitored more closely. There were six of them. Harris was already lying on the floor. They held him face down and applied ‘approved methods of restraint’ to control him.

The cause of death

Corrections told the coroner that “Mr Harris violently resisted the application of these holds, and additional officers were called to assist.” After a struggle that lasted about five minutes, Harris was restrained and handcuffed. At this point, staff noticed he was not breathing. The coroner found that the cause of death was “asphyxia of an undetermined cause, initiated either by self-strangulation or pre-existing medical condition, but in combination with restraint, with an underlying condition of morbid obesity with secondary dilated cardiomyopathy (heart disease)”.

‘Asphyxia’ means suffocation and the coroner says it was of ‘undetermined cause’. No it wasn’t. It was caused by five or six officers sitting on top and restraining him – clearly described in the coroner’s report as a “seething mass of humanity”. See his report here. The coroner appears to have said the cause was ‘undetermined’ because there were health issues involved and by law, he is not allowed to apportion blame – merely to identify the circumstances of the death and make recommendations for change.

Deaths in police custody

The same limitation applies to the Independent Police Conduct Authority. It investigates complaints against the police – including deaths in police custody. It can make recommendations for change, but also has no power to prosecute. Earlier this year, the IPCA released a report titled Deaths in Custody after 27 people died in police custody in the last ten years. Seven of them died when officers were overly vigorous in their use of restraint

Five of those who died had underlying medical conditions. Three suffered from heart disease – they collapsed and died after physically struggling against the restraint that was applied to them – just like Nicholas Harris. Three died from positional asphyxia – being pushed down on the floor, handcuffed from behind – just like Harris; a number were arrested for violent behaviour at the time they collapsed – just like Harris. One death involved a police officer applying a neck hold to someone who was resisting arrest.

Of the 27 deaths in police custody, the IPCA said in over half of them, “the actions of the police fell short of the expected standards” and in four cases, the failings were serious. The report recommended that Police “ensure that the training provided to staff reinforces the dangers associated with restraining people in a prone position with their hands tied behind their back”. However, not one police officer was prosecuted. Only two officers even faced disciplinary action – one received an ‘adverse report’ and the other received a written warning.

This is because the IPCA has no power to prosecute – that’s up to the police. But the police are not keen to arrest their own officers – even when the IPCA has pointed out that serious failings were involved. Police are equally reluctant to charge Corrections officers whose failings have contributed to the death of prisoners in their care – and about 80 have suffered ‘unnatural deaths’ in the last ten years. Each death was examined by the coroner – who, of course, doesn’t blame anyone. That’s over 100 people who have died in custody in the last ten years – and not one police officer and not one corrections officer has ever been charged.

That’s unbelievable. Is it really possible that over 100 people can die in police and corrections custody in the last ten years, and not one officer is prosecuted? Suppose 100 law-abiding citizens died in dubious circumstances from unnatural causes – and the police failed to prosecute anyone. There would be a national outcry – Garth McVicar would have an apoplectic fit and heads would roll. But when 100 prisoners die – who cares? Certainly not McVicar. It seems there’s one law for Police and Corrections officers in New Zealand – and another for the rest of us.

A sick joke

The reality is that Nicholas Harris was killed by prison officers who, theoretically, were trying to save his life. Actually they were more interested in restraining him – even though he was already lying on the floor. They entered his cell, jumped all over him and suffocated him to death – an obese, suicidal prisoner with a heart condition – in a bizarre attempt to stop him from killing himself. It sounds like a sick joke – except that it’s true. The coroner not only said this was justified, he was so unconcerned about the way Harris died, he didn’t make a single recommendation for change. He didn’t even recommend that Harris should have had a psychiatric assessment when he was admitted to prison – or that he should have been given medication to calm him down.

And yet on the coronial services page of the Justice Department website, it says in bold letters: A coroner speaks for the dead to protect the living. The people being protected are Police and Corrections officers.

Escalating suicide and violence in New Zealand prisons

In October 2012 new figures were released showing serious assaults on prison guards have tripled in the past five years. During the year to the end of June, 18 staff were seriously assaulted – up from just six in 2007. And 235 cases of physical violence – which includes prisoners spitting or throwing water – were recorded in the past year, a rise of 190% on two years ago.

The rise in prison violence has led the Auditor General to express concern that the number of serious assaults and unnatural deaths in custody were much higher than expected. According to the Auditor General, assaults by remand prisoners on other prisoners in particular were 85% higher than expected and those by prisoners on staff were 160% higher than expected – expectations based on levels of violence in previous years.

The Auditor General, Lyn Provost, is also concerned that the rate of unnatural deaths (suicides) among prisoners is too high. So she should be. Twelve prisoners committed suicide in 2011 – which means the rate of suicide in prison is now eleven times higher than in the community.

The coroner’s report into the suicide of Kerry Joll released last month provides revealing insights into the Department’s thinking on this issue. The coroner recommended that Corrections should improve its information systems so that the computer file of any prisoner known to be a suicide risk brings up a warning flag. The Department responded by saying: “Improving our current information systems is regarded as not worth the benefits it would bring because of cost, complexity and proportionately few incidents it would benefit.” Clearly, Corrections is not too worried about a few prisoners bumping themselves off – perhaps because each dead prisoner saves the taxpayer $90,000 a year.

International panel appointed

But it is worried about assaults on prison officers. In November 2012, Corrections Minister Anne Tolley announced that former police commissioner Howard Broad will head an international panel to advise the Government on ways to improve the safety of prison staff. In addition, 4000 frontline prison staff are to receive Tactical Exit Training, to help them deal with potentially violent situations. And, for the first time, staff in all prisons will have access to pepper spray and are being trained to use the spray as a tactical option.

Kim Workman of Rethinking Crime & Punishment congratulated Ms Tolley saying: “The establishment of an expert advisory panel to improve the safety of prisons could lead to a more balanced prison management regime”.

Workman is absolutely right that the management of New Zealand prisons is out of balance. There is an obsessive focus on risk management and enhanced security at the expense of education, rehabilitation and work opportunities for prisoners. Workman quotes prison expert Professor Andrew Coyle, who visited New Zealand last week. Coyle talked about the three main aspects of prison management – security, safety and prisoner activity. He says increasing prisoner activity – meaning rehabilitation and employment opportunities – makes prisons safer, while excessive focus on security measures threatens prison and staff safety. Coyle says: ”The three responsibilities are like three legs of a stool. If they are not in balance, then the stool will become unstable and may well fall over.”

Vote of no confidence

The appointment of an international panel does not sound like it will lead to greater ‘prisoner activity’. It sounds more like a vote of no confidence in chief executive Ray Smith. Prison assaults and suicides have escalated dramatically since Smith took over – because of woefully inadequate health care for prisoners with mental health problems and tighter security measures implemented by his predecessor Barry Mathews.

The appointment of a panel to advise on safety issues suggests that Government is worried that the rates of violence and unnatural death in prison are out of control – and that, just like his predecessor, Ray Smith is not up to the job of turning the problem around.

Life is cheap in New Zealand prisons – the suicide of Kerry Joll

The Dominion Post has just reported the outcome of the coroner’s inquiry into the suicide of Kerry Joll. Under the headline “Prison death ‘tragic loss of life” the DomPost reveals he was found dead in his cell three months after being sent to prison for drink driving. Sure it’s tragic – but the headline should have read: “Corrections department says saving prisoners lives is not worth the benefits”. This in effect is what the Department said in response to a report from the coroner that the Corrections Department should make more effort to assist suicidal prisoners.

Here’s what happened. Kerry Joll had a serious alcohol and drug problem. In 2011 he was sentenced to 14 months in prison for drink driving – his 10^th conviction. Every prisoner has a brief health assessment on admission. When Joll was interviewed by prison nurses, he told them he was taking antidepressants, and that he had hepatitis C – a disease frequently associated with the use of dirty needles. Three weeks after he was sentenced, he stopped taking his antidepressants. No one seems to know why. Two months later he hung himself. The coroner said he left a note indicating he was “having difficulty dealing with his depression and was unhappy that the Corrections Department did not appear to take seriously his complaint about very loud music being played from the next door cell”.

The Corrections Department absolved itself of any responsibility for his death by claiming that when Mr Joll underwent his health assessment, he failed to reveal that he had made at least two previous attempts at suicide. But they then acknowledged that this information was already on his file but nobody in the prison medical team bothered to look at it – and the IT system used by Corrections does not bring up a red flag indicating when a prisoner is a potential suicide risk.

Not worth the benefits

The coroner appears to have recommended that the Department upgrade its IT system so that vulnerable prisoners are ‘red flagged’. That might help, but management at Corrections don’t give a tuppeny stuff. Their written response to the coroner was: “Improving our current information systems is regarded as not worth the benefits it would bring because of cost, complexity and proportionately few incidents it would benefit.”

Really? The suicide rate in New Zealand prisons is 11 times higher than the suicide rate in the community. Twelve prisoners committed suicide in 2011 – double the figure for the previous year. The rate of failed suicide attempts was almost double the number which actually succeeded. Twelve dead prisoners a year are not worth the benefit?

How can a Government Department get away with a cavalier attitude like that? Look at the fuss which goes on when Government Departments inadvertently release confidential information to the public – even though nobody dies. Look at the fuss that went on when the police broke the law to arrest Kim Dotcom – even though nobody died. Look at the fuss the Department made when Jason Palmer became the first prison officer to die in New Zealand. The media were all over these stories – and so were the politicians.

But when 12 prisoners a year commit suicide – no fuss at all. No media interest. No political interest. Not even much interest from the Coroner. Certainly no interest from Corrections – definitely not worth the benefit of ‘improving our information systems’. Life is cheap in New Zealand prisons.

How police and probation harass prisoners on parole – the case of Tony Maude

In 2007 I was asked by the district court to conduct an alcohol and drug assessment on Tony Maude who was facing charges of selling methamphetamine. Maude was exposed to drug use at an early age. He started smoking cannabis at the age of 10, using speed at 13 and drinking at age 15. When he was 22, he attended rehab at the Salvation Army and managed to get his drinking under control. But it wasn’t long before he started using methamphetamine instead and eventually began selling it to feed his habit.

He got busted by police and was sentenced him to prison for six years. Mr Maude knew he needed help and while in prison, he attended individual counselling for 18 months and was then admitted to the Drug Treatment Unit. He successfully completed the programme and was released on parole in May 2010 – after serving more than three years in prison. But police and probation wouldn’t leave him alone. Since being released, Mr Maude has been recalled to prison four times to finish serving his sentence.

First recall

As part of his parole conditions, Maude was required to attend another rehabilitation programme in the community. He was half way through this when he was asked by the programme facilitators to describe a potential high-risk situation and how he would cope with it. He made one up and described an imaginary situation in such a realistic way, that the facilitators thought it had actually occurred and passed the story on to probation. Instead of checking the details, his probation officer immediately told the police Mr Maude had breached his parole conditions. Police arrested him and sent him back to prison. When Mr Maude appeared at the recall hearing a month later, it was clear to the Board that the facilitators, the Probation Service and the police had all got it wrong – and ordered Mr Maude to be released.

Probation then tried to breach him for failing to complete the rehabilitation course (because he was in prison) and hauled him back into court. His probation officer received a serious reprimand from the judge for his treatment of Mr Maude and for wasting the court’s time.

Second recall

When he got out, Maude went to live with a friend at an approved address. He had only been there about a month when his mother died after a long battle with cancer. But his probation officer didn’t care. He was miffed at being told off by the judge and now had it in for Mr Maude. Shortly thereafter the police raided the house pretending they were looking for methamphetamine.

Police found a cannabis plant growing in a wardrobe – in the bedroom where his friend slept – who was also the owner of the house. They arrested Mr Maude and sent him back to prison – but didn’t arrest his friend who owned the cannabis plant. The friend appeared at the recall hearing a month later and testified that the cannabis plant belonged to him not to Mr Maude. For a second time, the parole board agreed that Mr Maude had not reoffended and released him immediately.

Third recall

During the ten months that Mr Maude had been on parole, he started going out with a female friend he had known for many years. His probation officer was aware of the relationship and had even let them go on holiday together. He gave Mr Maude special permission not to report into him during the week they were away. About a week after his second recall hearing, Mr Maude and his partner became engaged.

By now he had a different probation officer. Feeling happy about his engagement, he told his new probation officer the good news. Three days later, he and his fiancée were both served with a non-association order. After being honest with probation about his situation, Mr Maude ‘felt gutted’. Nevertheless, he stayed away from his fiancée and the relationship came to an end.

Mr Maude had also told his probation officer that he had some work organised doing up cars and asked for permission to start. His probation officer gave him the go ahead. Lo and behold, a few days later, the police came to the property where he was working. They found Mr Maude and rang probation to check that he was allowed to be there. The probation officer told the police officer it had been approved and he was allowed to work.

Later that night, Mr Maude’s sister rang him up and told him that the armed offenders’ squad had been round to her house wanting to arrest him. Mr Maude turned himself in six weeks later and the Probation service told the Parole Board he had been “working without written permission”. This time the Board officially recalled him to prison – even though the Corrections Department is supposed to help prisoners find work because having a job on release reduces the risk of re-offending.

Fourth recall

Since working on parole was a minor breach, Mr Maude was eventually released again – still on parole for his original offending (selling meth). This time, he lived with friends at an approved address in Seaview. However, he began to get depressed because the house was unsuitable to bring his children to. (On top of all his other problems, Mr Maude had also been trying to gain custody of his five year old daughter in the Family court.) Mr Maude was also beginning to feel that no matter what he did, the police and the probation service seemed to be out to get him. He bumped into a friend who offered him a smoke of methamphetamine. In a moment of weakness, he accepted the offer – and started using again.

Eventually Mr Maude found a nice three-bedroom home where he could have his children and the probation service approved the accommodation. He had only been in the house for three weeks when he was raided by the police – yet again. This time they found a small amount of methamphetamine. He pleaded guilty and was returned to prison to serve out the remainder of his original sentence

Recommendation to the Court

Ever since he was first released, on parole Mr Maude has been harassed by the police and probation service. During this time, his mother died, his engagement broke up and his ex-partner took off to Christchurch with his daughter and the police raided every house he stayed at.

Mr Maude relapsed under the overwhelming stress of this combined series of events. In my report to the Court, I concluded that, although he relapsed, Mr Maude does not require any further drug treatment. “What he needs to be left alone by the police and probation service to get on with his life.” (Posted with Mr Maude’s permission.)

The Sensible Sentencing Trust has a lapdog – the media

Justice Minister Judith Collins has decided to limit the number of parole board hearings that prisoners are allowed to attend. Introducing legislation to that effect in September, she was quoted in the New Zealand Herald saying: “For offenders who refuse to acknowledge their offending and have made little or no effort at rehabilitation, it makes no sense to hold parole hearings.” Ms Collins went on to say these hearings cause needless stress to victims of crime who have to “relive their ordeal year after year”.

On 27 Sep 2012 Rachel Smalley (Frontline TV3) interviewed Ruth Money of the so-called sensible sentencing trust on this subject. Ms Money seems to be the heir apparent to Garth McVicar. She sings from the same song sheet and hits the same wrong notes. First, she told Smalley that “prison is voluntary”. It’s not. It’s a punishment imposed by the court.

Second, Ms Money lied about victims having to attend parole board hearings. Like Judith Collins, she said that family members “have to suffer through annual parole hearings”. They don’t. According to Kim Workman, 95% of victims do not attend hearings. Ms Money even said that Rita Croskery (mother of murdered pizza delivery man Michael Choy) has to go to 6 hearings every year. She doesn’t – it’s a choice she makes.

Third, Ms Money also said parole hearings revictimize the victims – who have to prepare for months in advance and get so worked up they vomit. She gave the impression this stress is due to coming face to face with the offender – over and over again. But that’s not how it works. The Board holds entirely separate hearings for victims – so that victim and offender never meet (unless they both want to). The stress experienced by victims is because the SST pressures them to attend and winds them up into thinking their input will make a difference. In other words, it’s the SST which is responsible for victims being revictimised.

Finally, Ms Money said parole should be abolished and prisoners should serve their whole sentence. She ignored evidence presented by Sir David Carruthers that prisoners who serve their whole sentence are more than twice as likely to re-offend as those released (and monitored) on parole.

Breach of broadcasting standards

TV3’s interview with Ruth Money contained so many inaccurate statements it breached at least two broadcasting standards. For instance, Standard 5 (of the BSA code) says: Broadcasters should make reasonable efforts to ensure that news, current affairs and factual programming: is accurate in relation to all material point of fact and/or does not mislead. The item was inaccurate, highly misleading and presented a distorted picture of how the parole board works.

TV3 also breached Standard 4 which says: When discussing controversial issues of public importance in news, current affairs or factual programmes, broadcasters should make reasonable efforts, or give reasonable opportunities, to present significant point of view either on the same program or in other programs within the period of current interest. No one else was consulted – just Ruth Money.

I made a formal complaint about a similar TV1 interview of Garth McVicar in 2008 – which was upheld by the Broadcasting Standards Authority. It will be interesting to see if the BSA upholds my current complaint about TV3’s interview with Ruth Money

Why do I care? Why should anybody care? Because the media have been in bed with the Sensible Sentencing Trust for years and are still helping Garth McVicar fulfil his twisted fantasies on television – and because his punitive delusions contribute to competition between the major political parties to be ‘tough on crime’. It’s time the media got out of bed with the SST and challenged McVicar’s distorted version of reality. It’s time the media gave McVicar and Ms Money a hard time – just like they’re now doing with John Key over the Kim Dotcom disaster. After all, the media are supposed to be the watchdogs of democracy – not the Sensible Sentencing Trust lapdog.

Crime at an all time low – but we need another prison

New Zealand’s crime rate has dropped to an all-time low. Official figures released this week show that crime has dropped for the third year in a row. In 2010, the number of murders in New Zealand dropped by nearly a quarter over the previous year (from 65 to 46), while overall reported crime fell 6.7%. In 2011, New Zealand’s recorded crime rate was at its lowest in 15 years, down another 5.6% on the figures from 2010. In 2012 (financial year), the crime rate dropped another 5.9% on the previous year – taking into account an increase in the population of 0.7%. Homicide and related offending dropped by 21.5%.

The total number of offences in 2012 was the lowest since 1989 – the lowest crime rate per head of population since the introduction of electronic records. There’s no doubt about it – crime is down – and the rate has been dropping since the turn of the century.

There has been much speculation about the cause of the turnaround. Judith Collins would have us believe it’s all due to better policing and her Government’s “get tough” policies, including the draconian three strikes law. That doesn’t add up – because the decrease began long before National came to power. Victoria University criminology professor John Pratt would have us believe it’s all due to demographics. His point is that young people commit the most crime but New Zealand has an aging population. That makes more sense, but no doubt there are many factors involved.

Distorted perceptions of crime

Whatever the cause and despite this dramatic drop in the figures, many New Zealanders continue to believe that violent crime is out of control. A Ministry of Justice study in 2003 found that 83% of New Zealanders held inaccurate and negative views about crime levels in society and ‘wrongly believed’ that crime was increasing. A more recent study in 2009 by Dr Michael Rowe, also from Victoria University, found an overwhelming public belief that crime has got worse despite New Zealand’s murder rate dropping by almost half in the past 20 years.

Reflecting the depth of these misperceptions, between 2006 and 2009, only 57% of New Zealanders reported feeling ‘safe’. This means that despite reductions in crime, and despite our international standing as a peaceful country, New Zealanders feel no more secure than the citizens of former communist states like Bulgaria (where only 56% feel safe) and Albania (54%). New Zealand is also on a par with Middle Eastern countries like Iran (55%) and Lebanon (56%) and African countries such as Angola (53%), Nigeria (51%) and Uganda (51%)

Many of these misperceptions comes from the so-called sensible sentencing trust which has been contributing to Kiwis’ fear of crime for over ten years. Spokesperson Ruth Money was interviewed on TV3’s Firstline last week supporting Judith Collins decision to reduce parole hearings for prisoners who refuse to accept their guilt, or make little effort at rehabilitation. Let’s get real about this. It’s the Corrections Department that makes little effort at rehabilitation. They refused to put Stewart Murray Wilson into a programme for sex offenders – and then blamed him for not attending.

And let’s not forget that more than 20,000 Kiwis end up in prison every year – 90% with alcohol and drug problems. But only 1,000 prisoners a year attend treatment for their addictions. A majority of inmates also have poor literacy skills – but the Department’s rehabilitation programmes require the ability to read and write. Kim Workman of Rethinking Crime and Punishment makes the point like this: “Sentencing judges and the Parole Board can give directions for a prisoner to undergo a course of rehabilitation, only to find that Corrections cannot provide it. In the worse cases, the unavailability of rehabilitation affects the offender’s chances of parole.”

Sensible sentencing?

This is bizarre. The Government is willing to spend $900 million building a 960 bed prison at Wiri – even though there are currently 1,600 empty beds in the prison system – rather than provide more programmes and put more prisoners into them. Crime is down for the third year in a row – and has been dropping for the last ten years – but for some reason we need another prison and less parole board hearings. This is sensible sentencing? Yeah right!

Public protection orders – Collins can’t count

In response to the media hype about Murray Wilson being released in Wanganui, Justice Minister Judith Collins has just introduced a new Bill allowing the imposition of public protection orders on child sex offenders and violent criminals. This will enable authorities to keep them in prison after they’ve finished their sentence – or return them to prison if they’ve already been released.

Section 9 of the new Bill says that for any application to keep someone in prison, there has to be “a very high risk of imminent serious sexual or violent offending by the respondent.” The Corrections Department assesses the risk of reoffending using a mathematical formula known as the RoCRoI (Risk of Conviction x Risk of Imprisonment). A score on the RoCRoI of .7 or above means the prisoner has a 70% risk of reoffending – which is classified by the Department as ‘high risk’. A score between .3 and .7 (30% to 70%) is considered medium risk and a score of .3 or below is considered low risk (30% or less).

Dubious mathematics

This is where it gets interesting. Judith Collins, says the proposed legislation will only apply to “a very small number of extremely dangerous people” – between 5 and 12 offenders over a ten year period. Clearly maths is not Ms Collins strong point. Approximately 7,250 inmates are released from prison each year (most after serving only short sentences). In 2011, 28.9% of these prisoners were classified as having a “high risk” of reoffending – that’s a colossal 2,095 “high risk” prisoners released into the street every year. Only 5.3% had a RoCRoI score of .9 or above. That’s 384 prisoners released each year classified as “very high risk”.

What that means is that over a 10 year period, approximately 3,840 released prisoners will meet the criteria of “very high risk”. However, Murray Wilson is not one of them. Murray Wilson’s lawyer, Andrew McKenzie says Wilson’s RoCRoI is only .48 – which means he is assessed by Corrections as having a 48% risk of reoffending. That puts him in the “medium risk” category.

His true risk may be even lower than that. Victoria University professor, Tony Ward, a clinical psychologist with expertise in sexual offenders says that given Mr Wilson’s age, he was unlikely to reoffend. Prof Ward said: “The reoffending rate for very high risk people over 60 is about six per cent.” That would mean Wilson was in fact “very low risk”.

In other words, a sex offender like Murray Wilson doesn’t even meet the criteria for these protection orders and all the publicity about him being a “high risk” offender is absolute nonsense. What this seems to mean is that if these public protection orders become law, they can be applied to virtually anyone in prison – even those assessed at low or medium risk. One has to conclude it’s not crime or prisoners who are out of control in New Zealand, it’s the media and unscrupulous politicians like Judith Collins who will go to almost any length to ramp up public hysteria so government can draft ever more draconian laws. It won’t be long before we need yet another new prison.

Corrections Department’s treatment of Stewart Murray Wilson

Graeme Burton spent 14 years in prison – doing next to nothing – before he was released and killed Karl Kuchenbecker. Murray Wilson, aka the ‘Beast of Blenheim’ – committed his crimes well over 18 years ago. He’s been sitting in prison ever since – also doing nothing – and the whole country (well, Wanganui anyway) is up in arms. Why? The ‘doing nothing’ in prison seems to be the problem.

For many years Wilson was held in Rolleston Prison, a low-security prison with a sex offenders unit that delivers group-based treatment to child sex offenders – just what Wilson needed. But Corrections refused to put him into this programme because he would not acknowledge his guilt. That’s very strange considering the entry criteria for this programme state that “denial or other cognitive distortions related to offending behaviour” are an indication of suitability for the programme.

Wilson clearly lacks insight, but it seems Corrections wouldn’t even let him see a psychologist. Speaking via video link to the High Court at Wellington in June 2012, Wilson complained, not for the first time, that he had even been denied counselling with a psychologist for the same reason – he would not admit he was guilty. He said he has had only four hours counselling in the 18 years he has been in prison.

Dealing with denial

Being ‘in denial’ is not uncommon and is often an issue when dealing with drug addicts and alcoholics. ‘Ambivalence’ is similar – a state of mind where the drinker or drug user is aware they have a problem but is not yet willing to address it. Alcohol and drug counsellors work with ambivalence and denial on a daily basis by using ‘motivational interviewing’ – individual counselling designed to enhance insight and motivation. It requires a non-confrontational approach to the client and the ability to ‘roll with resistance.’ Once rapport has been established using these techniques, then more in-depth treatment can begin.

Unfortunately, it seems Corrections psychologists were not able to establish rapport with Wilson. He refused to even meet with the psychologist who wrote the final damning risk assessment on him and so she prepared her report from information on his file. Apart from the dubious ethics involved in writing a report without talking to the subject of that report, why would Wilson not want to meet with her? Probably because Corrections psychologists are generally employed to write risk assessment reports rather than provide therapy – and she had already written a number of negative reports about him. That’s probably where the ‘four hours counselling’ went that Wilson was referring to. Clearly there was not a lot of trust between Wilson and this particular psychologist.

Wilson’s background

This is not surprising. Wilson comes from a background that makes it very hard for him to trust anyone. His parents were both alcoholics and it appears he was sexually abused as a child himself. As a teenager he was hospitalised for a long period in psychiatric institutions, and had little in the way of education. Given his personal limitations, that puts the onus on Corrections psychologists to make more of an effort. But they didn’t. They appear to have met with him only four times in 18 years and declared him unco-operative. They wouldn’t allow him to attend any counselling or attend treatment in the sex offenders unit unless he admitted his guilt.

The most pathetic part of this farce is that Corrections claims it cannot compel offenders to attend rehabilitation programmes. That makes no sense at all. The police have the power to arrest criminals; the court has the power to send them to prison; but Corrections claims that once in prison they can’t compel anyone do a programme. That’s bullshit. He’s in prison for God’s sake – attendance should be compulsory – especially when international research indicates that compulsory treatment is just as effective as voluntary treatment. The same research also shows that long term programmes work better than short-term programmes – because they give an offender time to become engaged in the process. That’s why the sex offenders’ programme is the longest the Department provides – it takes nine months and reduces the risk of re-offending by more than 50 per cent.

Setting offenders up to fail

Unfortunately, Corrections never gave Wilson a chance. They seemed to think he had to have the necessary insight and motivation right from the start. That’s just totally unrealistic. The majority of offenders are also alcoholics or drug addicts who are often unmotivated, in denial or ambivalent at the start of a rehabilitation programme – but become engaged once it gets going.

The reality is that Corrections was responsible for rehabilitating Wilson but made almost no effort to do so. All they did with him in prison is isolate and contain him – for 18 years. Now he’s being released to Wanganui under the most stringent conditions ever imposed on anyone ever released in New Zealand. That’s more containment. The people of Wanganui have made it very clear they don’t want him. That’s more isolation.

Someone who knows something about rehabilitation is Victoria University Professor, Tony Ward, a clinical psychologist with expertise in sexual offenders. He described the fervour at Wanganui’s public meetings as a type of “moral panic” and said that given Mr Wilson’s age, he was unlikely to reoffend. “The reoffending rate for very high risk people over 60 is about six per cent.” Professor Ward said the best way to rehabilitate sex offenders was to keep them in the midst of other people – where they could be watched – and give them support.”

This is all so familiar. Graeme Burton committed two murders under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Corrections had him in their custody for 14 years and never put him into a programme to address the core issue – his drug addiction. They also ignored the recommendations of six expert reports pointing out that drug use was a risk factor for Burton and did not bother to provide the Board with an alcohol and drug assessment on him despite a statutory obligation to keep the Board informed about all aspects of his offending.

The Department had Wilson in custody for even longer – 18 years, and they’ve done exactly the same thing – nothing. One can only conclude that Corrections is deliberately setting up Murray Wilson to fail – just like they did with Graeme Burton.