what have i learned?
Note: This was first published on 3/6/2025 at the old wordpress.com blog. I've edited the opening paragraphs a little, mostly to bring it a bit more up-to-date, and I've removed a little bit of what now strikes me as fluff, but other than that the body of the post is largely the same, and the points I was making then are still valid now.
It’s been seven years and ten months working in prisoner reintegration. Three-and-a-bit years running a bail house working with men who would be in remand as their case is worked slowly through the trial process, then the rest of the time working with people coming out of prison on parole or at the end of their sentence.
I must’ve learned something in that time, surely?
First up, we don’t have a justice system in New Zealand.
We have courts, certainly. They are organised into something of a system. Whether what they dispense at the end of the trial process counts as justice is a matter for debate.
I have ranted about justice enough in the past. It seems to me that most systems of justice are founded on vengeance, the need to exact retribution, the desire to punish. That is, people have traditionally thought of justice as making the wrongdoer suffer, or otherwise removing them from society – be that via exile, banishment, shunning, or death. We no longer have the death penalty in New Zealand, but we still have laws, policies, and politics that focus on banishment – jailing people – and a culture that prefers to shun criminals – look at the challenges people face while on probation or community-based sentences, and how much bigger those challenges are for those emerging from prison.
“Jailing is failing” – New Zealand is definitely not alone in this, and much of what I read about crime, justice, and punishment in Australia (and other countries, too) seems pretty similar to what I see happening here. Prison is a traumatic experience, and it seems to me that all prisons everywhere have been deliberately designed to be traumatic. I do think we need to have secure facilities of various kinds. There are some people who need to be locked away for their own safety, others who need to be locked away for the public’s safety, and others who need to be locked away for both reasons. But locking them up in a deliberately traumatic environment to punish them for their crimes is not helping anybody.
More prisons and longer, harsher sentences will do nothing to reduce crime rates or protect the public.
People need treatment, rehabilitation, education, and training while they are inside. The actual causes of peoples’ criminal behaviour need to be addressed and treated, and people need to be allowed to develop the skills and knowledge they will need to re-enter society. The Department of Corrections runs many programmes to address all of this, and there are many individuals, NGOs, and even businesses contributing what they can to help, but it is not enough.
And there are many good people working in Corrections, the Police, the courts, NGOs, even businesses, who are contributing what they can to improve outcomes for those caught up in the system. But it is not enough.
Politicians love to talk “tough on crime” and accuse each other of being “soft on crime”. I would suggest that New Zealand has never had a government that has been “soft on crime”. Things like “cultural reports” aren’t about getting lighter sentences; they’re about uncovering the factors that lead the person down the path of crime. Is it mental health? Addiction? Childhood trauma? Undiagnosed or poorly supported neurodivergence of some flavour or another? All of the above in varying degrees? Uncovering those factors allows the person to be directed to programmes that will help them heal and learn the skills they’ll need when they’re back out in the world. Just locking them away for ever longer terms will only compound the trauma – and not just for the “offender”, but also for the families and communities they’ve come from.
And why put “offender” in scare quotes? Because they’re just people. Very ordinary people. They’re also often very broken people, as alluded to in the previous paragraph. But you don’t fix broken people by bashing them even more. What is more helpful is meeting them where they’re at, listening to them, and walking alongside them, helping them find what they need to actually make a go of life. Will they all successfully reintegrate into society? No, not all, but they do all need to be given the chance.
Far too often, even today, people are emerging from prison without even the most basic needs met. No ID, no bank account, no existence. It can take weeks to get somebody back on the grid, and somehow they’re expected to survive with only the $350-odd from their Steps to Freedom card. It’s almost as if the system prefers recidivism.
Emerging from prison is a bewildering, often overwhelming experience. There is so much happening and so much needs to be done in such a hurry. It does remind me a lot of my days nursing people through culture shock in Beijing. There’s forests’ worth of paperwork – induction at Probation, WINZ, tenancy agreements…. There’s just getting food – I’ve seen people walk into Pak ‘n’ Save with big lists of what they need, then walk out with a bunch of bananas, a tub of margarine, and a packet of biscuits, and a look in their eyes that just screams “overwhelm!” Here’s the ground – put your feet on it. Here’s up, down, north, south, east, west. We’ll take things one little step at a time in order from “most immediate need” to “now we’re getting settled”. Now just breathe. It can take a lot of energy helping someone through this process. It’s not difficult to imagine how much more it takes to simply be the one walking out the prison gate.
What have I learned? Not a lot. Not much more than that there’s a lot more learning to do.