22 November 2001

Robson Takes His Award-Winning About Time Report To Christchurch

“’Early intervention works best, costs less’: New Zealand can lead the world in crime prevention if we follow this simple motto,” Corrections Minister Matt Robson said at a Safer Communities Forum tonight in Christchurch.

He hosted a community debate around his recent report, About Time, which calls for a host of early intervention measures with at risk children.

“We don’t want to wait until they grow up to become hardened criminals,” says Matt Robson.

About Time won the Central Government section award at the 2001 KPMG Innovations Awards, with the judging panel saying the report contained ‘ a package of ideas with unprecedented potential for reducing serious crime.’

“I’m very pleased that the common sense approach of About Time has been acknowledged.

“The message is simple: The most effective way to keep the public safe is to intervene before people start on a life of crime.

“I’ve been travelling the country talking at public meetings about early intervention. I’ve also been listening to the people at the coalface, especially school principals who are very concerned about truancy and its links to crime. They desperately want support for a more co-ordinated national programme of early intervention initiatives.

“It may seem strange that a Minister in charge of prisons has been visiting schools. But I want to make sure these kids don’t end up on one of my prison door-steps.

“The average cost of imprisonment per inmate per year: $52,738. Early intervention is cheaper. If we intervene with a 5 year old in trouble at school, it will cost $5000 and we have a 70% chance of success. Intervention at age 25 costs $20,000 and has only a 20% success rate.

Next year in the lead up to the budget I will be pushing strongly for the resources to co-ordinate a national programme of early intervention with kids at risk,” says Matt Robson.

Ends

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>