Crime and Justice Conference to Encourage Informed Dialogue Prison Fellowship

"Prison Fellowship is encouraging members of the public to attend their annual Conference, - "Changing the Landscape Another Perspective on Crime and Justice'", to be held this month."

Kim Workman, National Director, Prison Fellowship explained. "We are concerned at the amount of inaccurate information being peddled to the public on law and order issues. Recent public meetings have been held at which the public have been fed a narrow range of policy options, most of which have been demonstrated not to work. One group who attended a recent meeting, described it as, "an Amway Convention on Steroids". The meetings crank up public anger and fear, without contributing to the formation of workable policy."

"The problem is that amongst all the rubbish are some good ideas, which need to be teased out in a sensible and informed discussion."

"This year's Prison Fellowship is geared to address that. Those attending will be able to hear outstanding speakers on such issues as crime in the community, victim's rights, imprisonment, youth offending, child abuse, offending by Maori, and new approaches to offender rehabilitation. In addition, those attending will take part in two workshops, which will engage them in discussion about strategies to reduce crime in the community. "

Speakers include the Hon Phil Goff, Justice Eddie Durie, Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft, Barry Matthews, CEO, Corrections, Dr Cindy Kiro, media analyst Jim Tully, Nandor Tanczos, and Head of the Crime Prevention Unit, Jeremy Wood. Three international experts are taking part; Professor Andrew Coyle and Baroness Vivien Stern, International Centre for Prison Studies, Kings College, and Ron Nikkel, President of Prison Fellowship International.

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