Things have come to a sad state of affairs when victims have to flee the country from psychopath wielding a knife. Worse still the psychopath is currently residing in teh big house and some crim hugger has decided to go against the Parole Board reccommendations for and assessment that the psychopath is a “risk to the community”.

Ian McArtney, 56, of Paekakariki, believes his ex-neighbour, Robert Frame, will harm him when he leaves prison next month after serving a sentence of three years and nine months.

In July 2006, Frame, who is now in his 50s, sliced Mr McArtney’s face, cutting his mouth and tongue with a 15cm blade in what was described as an unprovoked and irrational attack.

Mr McArtney, a semi-retired IT consultant, says the corrections system is flawed because Frame has had no rehabilitation treatment, despite pleas from the Parole Board that without it he is a threat to the community.

You can’t really rehabilitate psychopaths, except maybe with a stretch of the neck or a dose of lead poisoning. Of course if we had more liberal gun laws this fellow (the victim) could safely continue his peaceful existance safe in the knowledge that he can defend himself. Bringing a knife to a gunfight is definitely not a wise thing to do.

Of course, handily Crusher Collins is the Corrections minister and the Police Minister, I should think that a solution may well be found rather quickly to this little problem. The first step would be to cancel his release and make him undergo the sooky rehabilitation programme. It won’t do him any good but it at least delays the inevitable.

Popularity: unranked [?]

The first shipping containers converted into cells will be ready to house prisoners from April and Corrections Minister Judith Collins says it is possible the pilot will be expanded as pressure comes on the prison muster.

Ms Collins today toured the first container crate prison wing at Rimutuka Prison in the Hutt Valley, saying it was coming in on time and on budget to hold 60 prisoners.

Can’t wait to see them in action, though I could be seeing them from the inside.

Each 12.2m long container has been converted into three insulated and heated cells with two bunks, a toilet, shelving and a small table, all constructed out of steel.

Once completed there will be two shower blocks and a guards office – also built out of containers – laid out on a concrete square with a verandah roof around the inside of the wing.

Windows in the cells will look into the enclosed grass area.

Ok I’ve found a way to save even more cash and really leap Crusher way ahead of everyone else. I don’t think we need insulation, heating, or windows.

“It is about a $5 million budget and that is a 40 percent save on a normal build. This is a pilot though and they tend to be a bit more expensive. Also we needed these beds quickly so what we haven’t done is use prisoners to help built the units and should we do this in the future we would expect to use prisoners.”

A forty percent save on a pilot! Perhaps Minister Collins might like to take some other ministers aside for a talking to about how to save money by thinking outside of the bureaucrats box.

Asked how likely it was the container cell concept would be expanded, Ms Collins said: “So far it looks pretty good, but it is a pilot and what we need to do is always evaluate how we are spending the money. Certainly at this stage it looks pretty good and we may well do more of this.”

Great stuff. Build more, faster and cheaper than concrete, then knock down all the shit holes sitting on prime real estate and sell the land for mega bucks.

With Crusher Collins doing a splendid job in Corrections and with the police it is little wonder that The Whale is hearing squeaks of “Creepy” Cosgrove ditching early to run for Christchurch mayor.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Judith Collins must have read Rudy Guiliani’s autobiography because it seems she is adopting a lot of his principles for policing.

She has come out backing the police over the joyrides at the school gala. She has played this one bloody well.

Guiliani lowered the rate of crime in NY by publicly backing police at all times, even when they did things like shoot unarmed blacks. Previously the politicians would wring their hands in anguish, and complain about police behaviour as if the police were generically bad, rather than doing a tough job for low pay in difficult circumstances.

Guiliani got hammered in the press and by all sorts of liberals about this, but through his deeds he built trust in his police force, trust to actually police rather than worrying about some dopey bureaucrat or moronic ‘justice reformer’. The result was a police force that actually was willing to police, and felt confident in their ability to police.

Obviously firing 41 bullets at an unarmed black man was going a bit far, but Guiliani remained steadfast in his support of the officers, who were all acquitted when tried for the shooting.

Crusher Collins has taken the same approach with the NZ Police. Police officers know they will receive her backing, not be sold down the river like Helen Clark and her minions did. This will give police officers the confidence to police properly, protecting the good people in the community, not the criminal scum.

Now to complete the package she needs to read up on Sheriff Joe, better still hire him to advise in Corrections.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Quite a few times in the past week Tiger Mallard has got himself in a spot of bother with his growing internet addiction.

The Whale’s spies in Goff’s office tell me that they are concerned with his addiction and his dropping off in workload  in other areas as a result.

It’s strange really because Tiger really seems to be the only senior Labour MP presently awake at the wheel. Even if that alertness is the best entertainment on the net right now. Tiger is really does seem to has his y-fronts in a twist and is spending more and more time locked away in a dark room muttering about the indignity of being in opposition. It might explain his creepy fixation with all things Cactus.

Speaking of entertainment, it seems some MPs are finding coming to grips with Social Media, Tiger especially after de-friending Metiria “Tiki” Turei. What a pompous ass him talking about watching her behaviour. Tiger is the worst behaved of all MPs and now without Goff reigning him in or Helen wagging her finger at him he goes off like a loose cannon frequently.

Some of the problems with Social Media and publicly available MPs is the posting of photos. One of the better MPs at maintaining his Facebook profile in something other than a sanitised version of the local rag is Simon “Just-in” Bridges. However he isn’t immune as you can see from this comment on a post about opening an Indian Sweat Sweet Shop.

“Crusher” Collins looks like she has a good sense of humour too by joining the Fan page of “Always Blow on the Pie”. Good to see the police minister supporting one of her own.

Crusher Collins is a Fan of "Always blow on the pie"

Popularity: unranked [?]

Judith Collins has an opinion piece in the NZ Herald and in her indomitable way puts liberal panty-waists like “FIGJAM” Power on notice that at least one of our politicians is staying in touch with the people in the street.

Time and again, victims of crime have told me they feel let down by a system that seems to put greater emphasis on the rights of offenders than victims.

People expect safe communities, where they can walk the streets without the threat of violence or intimidation, where they can sleep at night knowing their families are safe in their homes, where there is respect for property, people and the law.

These things are among the most fundamental obligations of any government. I believe we need to revisit the basic principles of punishment and reform.

As far as I am concerned, Offenders have no rights except the right to be housed and fed. We seriously do need to look at our Justice system.

In this country we have many people who have made a thriving industry out of making excuses for criminals.

In the past decade these people have overwhelmed the debate on law and order with their views on the rights of offenders.

By making excuses for criminals, these people send a very strong signal that crime is acceptable in our communities, that it is an accepted fact of life.

One thing I do not understand is how you can tell someone whose life has been torn apart by crime that it is acceptable.

Recently, a senior judge told me that he believed there was “far too much emphasis on victims in our courts at the moment”.

That Judge should be sacked. it is their job to protect society by putting crims away, not dishing out big hugs and cuddles. Collins is right, making excuses for criminals victimises the victim al over again. This is one of the reasons I set up SHAME. To stop people making excuses and hiding from the awful crimes that they committ.

For every crime there are victims like Leigh and her family, and for justice to be truly done it must strive to bring peace and closure to those victims. I believe it is time to reclaim a few basic ideas of what justice is and what it is supposed to do.

The public expects the system – first and foremost – to punish those who have broken the law. Punishment for serious crime in the majority of cases should be harsh, because anything less fails to acknowledge that victims of crime are never truly released from their sentences.

I don’t believe prison should be enjoyable. Prison should be an unpleasant experience so offenders do not want to return.

The justice system’s sole focus should not be on punishment. It is very important to give people the opportunity to turn their lives around.

Precisely. Judith Collins is right in touch with the feel on the streets, she clearly doesn’t ensconce herself in the rarefied atmosphere of the beltway. Serious Offenders need serious punishment, not PLasma screens and heated floors and cuddle toys and warm blankets. They need hard punishment and then when they get that message we can start looking at rehabilitation.

But pressure from those who advocate for the rights of criminals has resulted in too much focus on rehabilitating the prisoners who are least likely to be rehabilitated.

We should accept that some offenders will never be rehabilitated, and divert resources to those who could benefit from it.

The Government has announced a three-strikes policy that will escalate the severity of sentences.

Hoorah! The days of the panty-waist liberals running our prison is over. In the Police and Corrections Minister we have a minister who knows and understands about the victims of crime and what we need to do about. Som eoffenders are beyond redemption and the faster they are worked to an early grave the better. Perhaps under our free trade detail with China we could outsource the detention of lifers to China. They at least know how to make their sorry lives useful, often by using them as organ donors. The Chinese are very efficient when it come to making the useless useful.

Popularity: unranked [?]

National and Act have just announced their agreement to implement the 3 strikes law.

Agreement on the policy, which will be incorporated into the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, was announced by the Prime Minister John Key, ACT Leader Rodney Hide and Police and Corrections Minister Judith Collins today.

The new regime will uphold the Government’s election pledge to remove eligibility for parole for the worst repeat violent offenders, and incorporate significant aspects of ACT’s three-strikes policy.

Under the regime, an offender will receive a standard sentence and warning for the first serious offence.  For the second offence they will get a jail term (in most cases) with no parole and a further warning.  On conviction for their third serious offence, the offender will receive the maximum penalty in prison for that offence with no parole.

Good, time for us to put some people behind bars for a very long time.

In the revised Bill each strike will be based on an offender receiving a conviction for a qualifying offence. In the Bill as introduced, the threshold was a sentence of five years or more for a qualifying offence.

On their third strike offenders will get the maximum sentence for the offence rather than a life sentence with a minimum period of imprisonment of 25 years as originally proposed.

As a general rule, the list of qualifying offences comprises all the major violence and sexual offences with a maximum penalty of seven years’ prison or more.

The really interesting thing is that it was “Crusher” Collins at the press conference announcing this law and she is going to be the Minister implementing it. Normally this is the purview of the Minister of Justice, but Simon “FIGJAM” Power must have annoyed too many people to be trusted with this key piece of legislation. At least we know that “Crusher” will deliver, everything she has promised so far has manifested itself under her guiding hand, this law will be no different.

This is also a significant policy win for ACT and Rodney Hide can justifiably be proud of the impact his party is having on the government. The response from Labour will be interesting. Phil Goff would privately support this, but could he carry his caucus to supporting it. I seriously doubt he can do that.

Batter up I say.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Becoming a victim of crime is probably in the forefront of most peoples mind. They want it like they want cancer.

Miranda Devine writes in the SMH about the plague that liberalism has become and how politicians seem to always go for spin and woofterism instead of dealing with issues.

If I were a mother in India, I wouldn’t want my son going to Melbourne to study, after the spate of “curry-bashings” that has now resulted in a death. Accounting graduate Nitin Garg, 21, from Punjab, was fatally stabbed on Saturday while on his way to work as night manager at a Hungry Jack’s store in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

Police and other Victorian authorities immediately claimed it was not a racist attack, but how could they know that, especially when his wallet was left behind?

Garg’s mother, recently widowed, fainted when she heard the news about her younger son, a clever ”well-behaved, gentle, law-abiding boy”.

As is usual these days from the liberals it was the victim and their community that was to blame, not the inherent racism that exists in Australia and in Melbourne especially, the underlying criminal elements that run unchecked by the Police. Is it any wonder that crimes like this occur when you get this sort of nonsense from the State Government and State Police.

Yet the tragedy should have been avoidable if the Victorian Government had taken seriously protests by Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney over lax policing over years; Victorian police have confirmed there were 1447 assaults on Indian students in the year to July 2008. The Federation of Indian Students says the real figure is four or five times higher, and increasing.

Instead, senior police criticised Indian students doing their own security patrols at Melbourne’s crime-ridden western suburbs railway stations.

Oh yes, let’s blame the victims, The Federal Government wasn’t much better.

Instead, politicians pulled out the spin machine.

On visits to India Prime Minister Kevin Rudd his deputy, Julia Gillard, Trade Minister Simon Crean and Victoria’s Premier, John Brumby, tried to hose down anger and safeguard our lucrative education industry.

They provided little beyond motherhood statements about what a “safe and welcoming place” Australia was. There were new scholarships for Indian students, and two inquiries that simply added to a raft of bureaucratic measures that do little to address the real cause of the problem: inadequate policing.

”The key initiatives will include extending the state’s education service managers . . . international scholarship program . . . expert reference group”, Brumby told the Indians. Blah blah blah.

This is exactly the problem, right there. Woofterism, mealy mouthed liberal politicians refusing to grasp the nettle and deal with crime and criminals.

But after a decade of policy dictated by leftist academic criminologists, who cling to the myth that crime is caused by poverty and social injustice, the most vulnerable people – such as Indian students working late at fast-food outlets – are paying the price, while ministers trumpet the lie that Victoria is the safest place in Australia.

It has long been the “root cause” dogma of the left that crime cannot be combated in the traditional manner by police on the streets. This allows big government to launch all sorts of utopian “social inclusion” programs to “address poverty and disadvantage”, and effectively hobbles frontline police who would prefer to be out arresting crooks.

Sound familiar? This is exactly the same claptrap trotted out endlessly by the last government and by liberals like Simon “FIGJAM” Power.

This week the Indian Government issued a travel advisory against Australia, warning Indian students to be “alert to their own security while moving around”, particularly in Melbourne, where “increasingly . . .. acts of violence are often accompanied by verbal abuse, fuelled by alcohol and drugs”.

What an indictment of Australia that it can’t keep visitors safe. Meanwhile, in New York, when I visited before Christmas, you couldn’t feel safer. There is a highly visible police presence on the streets, even to the point of police walking into department stores to look for shoplifters. Police cars cruise around constantly. Former no-go zones such as Times Square, in the heart of Manhattan, have been transformed into tourist meccas.

Since the zero tolerance policy instituted under the former mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his police commissioner, William Bratton, in the early 1990s, violent crime has dropped by 75 per cent. Last year there were 461 murders, a record low, down from a high of 2245 in 1990 when criminals ruled the roost. That was when, as the former lawyer Heather McDonald wrote in New York’s City Journal, “packs of feral youth attacked innocents”. Sound familiar?

The FBI now deems New York to be the safest big city in the US, a stunning achievement. Bratton’s idea was that if you cleaned up the small crimes, such as vandalism and public drunkenness, you eliminated the public disorder and fear that made residents leave the streets to criminals.

Again, does this sound familiar, the Australian part not the New York part. Enough of the liberalism, we now know it doesn’t work. The experiment was a failure. In parts of South Auckland there are definite no-go areas. Ask any cop, ask any security guard and ask any road maintenance worker. They just don’t go into those areas and therefore they get handed of to the crims and the thugs. Meanwhile the no-go zones become dilapidated and run down perpetuating the the very environment that liberalism with crime started in the first place.

This is why we need more politicians like Judith “Crusher” Collins and their solutions and much less of Simon “FIGJAM” Power bleating on about poor misbegotten unfortunates who commit crimes that are societies fault.

Popularity: 39% [?]

Today John Boscawen asked a fairly straight-forward question of the Prime Minister and all he got in reply was mumbled rubbish.

John Boscawen: Does he stand by the “concrete goal of closing the income gap with Australia by 2025” stated in the National-ACT confidence and supply agreement that he signed; if so, what is his Government’s plan for closing that $64,000 income gap by 2025?
Hon JOHN KEY: Yes. In the last 12 months, from an economic perspective, members have seen a number of moves by this Government. I strongly suggest that in 2010 members will see a lot more.

That is crap John and I think you know it.

Where is the plan? Is there a plan?

Meanwhile Judith Collins takes the cane to Creepy Cosgrove yet again and even gets him to admit he is making a meal of things. I don’t know why Labour keeps on giving him questions to ask, maybe it is Trevor’s way of getting some sort of vicarious spark back into his life.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I stand by comments that I have made that were based on assurances given to me by the Commissioner of Police. I agree with the Commissioner of Police. That member is always trying to make such a lot out of this issue, yet the New Zealand Police now has an attrition rate of less than 2 percent—the lowest since World War II.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I am not the only one trying to make a meal out of this. How does she reconcile those comments with the statement from the President of the Police Association, Greg O’Connor, who also has a view on her conduct, that on top of the extra duties and stresses created for the police in the run-up to Christmas, the most pressing issue for the police in 2009 is “how the hell to transport more people around for these duties with 10 percent fewer vehicles at your disposal.”?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I have not read that quote from Mr O’Connor. No doubt, Mr O’Connor and I will discuss it at this evening’s Christmas party at the Police Association.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: While she is having drinks at the Christmas party tonight, can she tell us how she reconciles the assurance she gave to the New Zealand public that no front-line police vehicles would be withdrawn with the fact that, as an example, a purpose-built specialist drug-dog vehicle has been withdrawn in Dunedin?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Actually, we have new police cars going into operation right now, but I know that the member will not admit it. He should just wait till later this week, when he will see some new cars going in and some new vehicles that he is not aware of. I think they will be much more purpose-built for the police.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was about a specific example in Dunedin. It was responded to with a general statement—the Minister laughs, prior to her drinks this evening—about police vehicle policy. The question was about a specific example in respect of Dunedin.

Mr SPEAKER: The member, if he recollects his question, asked the Minister how she reconciled a couple of matters, and the Minister reconciled them by pointing out that, in fact, new vehicles were being introduced this week. That seemed to be a perfectly fair answer to the question that the member asked.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Judith Collins has to be the top performer in cabinet bar none. A year ago she had been given the tough portfolios of Corrections and Police by John Key and without a doubt you have to say she is delivering.  She certainly is no lily-livered bleeding heart liberal pinko softy like some others in the National Party. Tonight in the house she moved the bill to bring in private prison management in to its second reading. (Speech pdf) Unfortunately I didn’t hear it but I listened to Creepy Cosgrove give his reply and was distinctly underwhelmed.

The fool even went on to suggest that National’s secret agenda is to privatise the Police and the Army. Well perhaps he should have a chat to his colleague David Shearer about those fine ideas. Shearer after all wrote academic papers supporting such hypothesis so at the very least we know that some in Labour think that is a good idea.

One year on in the job, let’s see what Judith Collins has achieved.

Popularity: 7% [?]