Thursday, 29 July, 2004

Corrections policy will be Minister's Swain song

Corrections Minister Paul Swain has the interests of criminals and the public back to front, United Future law and order spokesman Marc Alexander said today.

In a debate in Parliament last night over management of prison inmates, Mr Swain shrugged off Mr Alexander's suggestion to 'double bunk' criminals. Being prone to violence, putting them together may put them at risk, reasoned the Minister.

"So, the Minister is reluctant to put these criminals at risk of being hurt - yet his policies effectively do the same thing by releasing them through the parole provisions (at up to a two-thirds discount on their sentence), and putting the public at risk.

"The public effectively gets 'double-bunked' with offenders every time they're released, and frankly if their level of socialisation is such that they can't be in a cell with another individual, then it says something about how ready they are for release.

"Obviously this Minister cares more for the physical well-being of burglars, rapists, murders and paedophiles than the well-being of the law-abiding and innocent individuals of our communities," Mr Alexander said.

ENDS

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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>>