Alexander welcomes keeping payouts from prisoners

United Future law and order spokesman Marc Alexander congratulated Justice Minister Phil Goff for today signalling that legislative changes will be make sure the victims of crime will benefit from any compensation paid to prisoners for their treatment in prison.

“Well done. It’s an important step in the right direction and one United Future has been pushing for a considerable time,” Mr Alexander, the author of Justice With Both Eyes Open, a book published earlier this year.

“Anything that puts victims of crime at the top of the list, and criminals where they belong, at the bottom, is a good start,” Mr Alexander said in also calling for greater powers for handling dangerous and particularly difficult prisoners.

Speaking against the backdrop of a current legal bid for some $600,000 in compensation by four prisoners for alleged mistreatment in prison, Mr Alexander said that while there should be no room for abuse or ill treatment of prisoners, Corrections officers needed reasonable means of controlling at times near-uncontrollable prisoners.

“These are in fact prisons. They’re not Boy Scout jamborees. We’re dealing with some of the worst elements of society.

“The focus needs to continue to change from this soft-touch, bleeding heart approach,” Mr Alexander said.

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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>>