Chester Borrows MP - News

OUR DUTY TO BACK THE POLICE

nospam@example.com (admin) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:18:00 +1300

‘Doing our duty’ is something most of us consider when we take the trouble to vote or answer a jury duty summons. But for emergency service and defence personnel, doing their duty puts life and limb at risk, not by accident but deliberately and thoughtfully in service of our country.

In the last week there have been three separate violent attacks reported in the media – and if we look at annualised figures for assaults on police in any one year, another 50 or so took place that have not been reported. It also seems police are the butt of public esteem peaks and troughs dependant on the latest news bulletin or the last time we got a speeding ticket.

It’s not that long ago headlines screamed about ‘keystone cops’. There were derisive remarks about the way our most prominent civil protectors did their duty, because of errors in the 111 emergency call responses, the high numbers of infringement notices issued and the series of trials for a few members of the Rotorua CIB regarding events from about 20 years ago. What then changed people’s perception was some timely funding of communications centres, a refocus on priorities by an incoming government and also, tragically, a number of police killed whilst on duty.

Aside from the public face of policing, Association President Greg O’Connor very ably speaking on their behalf, most police just do the job and keep their mouths shut. Various privacy laws and conventions prevent them from telling their side of the story. The bawling offenders and their families are filmed swearing and slagging off in the first one or two items of news for a day or so, but the story is never revisited after the court cases are over. The aggravating features of the incident police were confronted with are never fully known by the public they serve - the alcohol and drug fuelled hate, the violence, the spit, the blood and the vomit. Nobody will ever know because much of it is never presented before the court due to legal irrelevance, police policy or just a lack of interest.

The public doesn’t want to know the real threats that exist in our own suburbs and cities – it will mean having to reconsider our personal safety, or it will be bad for business. It is easy to minimise then the contribution the police make, because whether or not we really are safe, we want to believe we are.

There has been a call for harsher penalties for serious violent offences against police and other emergency services staff, and I agree. When a crime is committed against an agent of the state, that violence against the agent is vicariously a crime against society. They are also doing a job that no one else is willing or skilled enough to do. If the community wants to instil a sense of ownership and responsibility towards the functionality of society, it needs to reinforce its abhorrence of those who ‘give the fingers’ to those rules. If the community doesn’t respect the rules enough to reinforce them in this way, how can we expect others to live by them?

CHEWING THE BONE WITH AN OLD DOG

nospam@example.com (admin) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:41:21 +1200

Today is a salient day in my political career. We had to put Joe – our Labrador/huntaway cross – down. He was 14 years old almost to the day and getting frail and sore. But it was Joe who did all those miles walking and thinking about getting into politics early in the morning and late at night. Once we finally won an election, he didn’t slacken. He was the sounding board for ideas and arguments I was having and when sleep didn’t come at the worst of times, was happy to get up and walk the streets, even at 3am. Nothing was too much to ask.

When you do things like I’ve done today, you think a lot about loyalty and respect. Loyalty is awarded ex-officio, at least initially. I’ve seen the most abused dogs, staff, children and family members remain fiercely loyal to someone who to my mind didn’t deserve it. But loyalty atrophies usually from the top and as loyalty is not shown to those closest, their loyalty rusts, corrodes and evaporates to a similar degree.

Respect is something different. Respect is something earned and can be applied to opponents and combatants and team-mates alike. There can be mutual respect between the policeman and the criminal, the jailor and the inmate, boxers, wrestlers and street-fighters. There is no pre-requisite of fondness or loyalty to exist before respect is shown.

In considering the debates of this week about foreshore and seabed; emissions trading; rationalisation of government funding; the smacking debate; amalgamation of Auckland councils it seems there lacks any respect for the other side. The torrent of e-mails flowing into my computer is often harsh and condemnatory without any knowledge of where I may stand on an issue. The public debate is the same with slaps here and there against anybody who deigns to disagree, rather than at least acknowledging that each party understands the argument, in spite of taking a contrary view. The protagonists in the ‘h’ in Wanganui debate are a very raw local example.

I can’t help but think that having a sound and reasoned debate is what is missing from our core societal processes. Nobody has the time or inclination to explore both sides of a debate. The instant world in which we now live means the temptation is to assume the position from gut instinct and fight to the death regardless of respect for the other side or the reasoned arguments made.

Well, “so what?” The answer is that if we have a society that is founded on principals such as loyalty, commitment, respect for self and others, freedom of speech, the sanctity of human life etc, then we should have a think about how those values apply across political and social debate. We seem to want to divide issues into questions of race, colour, and the political spectrum. If you want to plant a tree you must be a greenie and if you want to cut one down you must be an uncaring capitalist – that sort of thing. That has no integrity at all. Young people quite rightly question principals and beliefs and if there is never debate there will never be recognition or support for the values we want to see continue as hallmarks of New Zealand society.

Most of us want to live a life that does more than wear a rut between home, work and the pub and that won’t happen unless we not only ask questions about motivation, but come up with some answers.

If the column seems a bit ‘fluffy’ this week please have regard for the circumstances under which it was written. Maybe I should have done it yesterday when I could have run it past Joe before I pushed the ‘send’ button. R.I.P old fulla.

Teach your children well

nospam@example.com (admin) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:41:31 +1200

One woman dies at the hands of her partner or former partner every 26 days in New Zealand. For a significant number of victims of violence, the most dangerous place they can be is in their own home. In 2007/2008, family violence accounted for approximately 39% of homicides, 42% of kidnappings and abductions, 44% of grievous assaults, and 64% of serious assaults. One in three NZ women experience physical and/or sexual abuse throughout their lifetime at the hands of a partner.

The cycle of violence is something that spans society and yet is a complete unknown for many of us. The reality is that as a relationship moves from a calm sea into stormier waters the protagonists know with certainty what is coming next and feel powerless to do anything about it. There is a building of a wave pattern of higher and higher peaks of intimidation leading to violence which moves from language into behaviours and then raw physical violence. The troughs between the waves become shallower and the peaks are closer together until there is an explosion. This is usually followed by immediate remorse prompted by an arrest or intervention by other family members and similar. Then follows the relative serene calm of promises to refrain in the future, accompanied by chocolates and flowers and an abstinence from alcohol, maybe church attendance or counselling sessions, but while there is hope of change there is a numb resignation that in time those seas will begin to show a wave pattern forming again.

Initiatives such as ‘It’s Not OK’ and the ‘It’s Not Just a Domestic’ programme which preceded it have initial profile and gain a good initial response in terms of family violence reporting’s, but over time the willingness to report violence incidents dissipates as the victims, usually women and children, come to terms with the reality of separation from the partner and his pay packet; awkward questions from neighbours and family; court appearances; lawyers bills; counselling sessions and the sheer embarrassment and disruption to having acknowledged the report in the first place. There is also the stigma which commentators associate with domestic violence as if the victims brought the lot upon themselves or are at least fifty percent of the problem. So there are incentives not to report violence and to ‘suck it up’. In the end we have a ‘battered women’s syndrome’ situation operating. All this does is teach the children in violent families that it’s a woman role to be beaten and it is perfectly acceptable for a man to beat his woman and her children.

New legislation before parliament creates a police issued temporary protection order called a '"Police Safety order". These can be issued against a person who is the aggravator of domestic violence even that falling short of an assault in situations where it is obvious to police that violence will follow without their intervention. The orders last for five days and enable a victim to obtain a Protection Order through the family Court process, and also allow for the District Court to issue protection orders as part of sentencing for family violence matters. Sometimes powerless victims need a community to take the initiative to protect them and those in their care.

We've got to stop teaching our kids that is Ok to beat and be beaten. This new initiative will keep us on message that violence is not OK.

If you always do what you've always done

nospam@example.com (admin) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:48:12 +1200

As I write this column I am travelling from New York to Washington DC continuing with my research trip looking at issues, trends and results of rehabilitation, particularly in prisons.

It is interesting to compare what is happening in other similar Western countries to New Zealand.

It seemed there were acute similarities between England and New Zealand last week. We had a resignation from our Parliament and several from Westminster for a number of different reasons. In the UK there was also a complete re-run of our Graeme Burton parole monitoring stuff-up. The Courts, Prosecution Service, Probation (his case officer had been in the job just nine months), and police allowed the release of Dano Sonnex, a serious serial violent offender on bail, failed to monitor him, then took 33 days to apply for a recall to prison and a further 16 days to act on the warrant.

The police arrested Sonnex and a co-offender six hours after they eventually killed two French students having tortured them repeatedly over several hours if not days.

The immediate response was obviously to note the terrible neglect of duty by so many key players in the criminal justice system.

Although it has to be remembered that it was the offenders personally who committed the killings, when these agencies get it wrong, the consequences are often fatal due to the nature of their work.

Sonnex’s brother and sister are both serving lengthy prison sentences for unprovoked serious stabbings, as did his drug addicted father. Sonnex himself had been in prison for similar offending prior to release. It was overlooked that Sonnex had expressed a belief that he would probably kill if released. He went on to kidnap a couple whilst on parole but when the complainants refused to press charges because they feared retribution, nothing happened to Sonnex - other than his parole officer congratulating him for admitting the abduction.

The subsequent response has to warn the public that they will see more of these completely foreseeable tragic acts if the criminal justice system doesn't do something about the huge lack of resources within.

The nine month veteran of the probation service monitoring Sonnex had 127 other parolees to supervise. It is not rare to have others monitoring over 300.

In the National government’s first budget, announced on 28 May, Bill English announced the recruitment of over 300 new probation officers who in this country supervise parolees and those probation. This was as well as 600 new police officers, 300 of whom will work in Counties-Manukau. You can't have one without the other.

It seems the Labour opposition have tried hard to make political points about the increased police numbers while remaining very quiet in respect of probation officers.

Another two similarities between the United Kingdom and New Zealand remain stark. The lack of human resources within and in support of the criminal justice system with a rampant prison population and a recently expired government (soon to be expired in the UK) who have done nothing for successive terms in power other than build prisons and staff them.

The lesson surely is that "if you always do what you've always done - you'll always get what you've always got."

We need new initiatives in law and order that accounts for the lessons of the past, deals with the abysmal offending statistics of today, and allows us to avoid making the same mistakes and tragic results in the future.

Chester Borrows on overseas research project

nospam@example.com (admin) — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:50:08 +1200

Chester Borrows, MP for Whanganui is due to embark on a research study which will take him to London, Northern Ireland, Belgium and the United States. He will meet with a variety of experts in the field of rehabilitation and restorative justice in addition to carrying out a comparison between prison systems within New Zealand and elsewhere around the world.

Chester was asked by Hon Judith Collins, Minister for Corrections to carry out the study with the aim of identifying initiatives or programmes which have been successfully implemented in other countries.

Minister Collins said:

‘The government, having introduced legislation to deal with sentencing and increased offending now needs to assess where it is at in respect of rehabilitation to facilitate the re-entry into society those who have been in prison. This is to ensure they are best prepared to live a crime free lifestyle out of prison. We need to tackle the numbers of repeat offenders in New Zealand. I would like to see the numbers of those returning to prison after release drop considerably.’

Chester said:

‘I am looking forward to working with Minister Collins on this once I have returned from overseas. I am hopeful that we will be able to identify a number of initiatives which would work well in New Zealand. Having recently participated in the Drivers of Crime forum I see this as the next step. We have a real opportunity here to identify areas in which we may be falling behind in the issues of rehabilitation and repeat offending.’