Te Radar: Apple a day keeps prison away

Certain folk this week were somewhat infuriated over the revelation that Hawkes Bay sex criminals have been running their lascivious fingers over the budding fruit of Eve.

A shortage of fruit-pickers, caused no doubt by the low pay, monotonous nature of the toil, and, some would argue, the inherent laziness of the long-term unemployed, has resulted in squads of prisoners being shipped in to pick apples.

For some reason there aren't enough illegal immigrants, overstayers, or tourists without work permits to fill the void.

So, rather than criminalise such people for undertaking this most essential of labours, some wise soul clearly decided to simply utilise people who are already criminals.

Reassuringly, authorities stated that prior to being placed on the work detail the inmates were carefully vetted. This surprised me somewhat, given the amount charged by vets compared to ordinary doctors. Still, it does conjure up a suitable animalistic image of these latter-day chain gangs being paraded and prodded like so many slaves.

What is surprising is that so few prisoners seem to be involved.

In an area so bereft of fruit-pluckers one would have imagined that the enforced labour of the criminal would be the logical solution to the problem, and that as many as could be mustered would be shipped in for the good of the economy and our children's teeth.

After all, it isn't like the work makes the prisoners wealthy, as they're paid only between 20c and 60c an hour, with the remainder of their payment going back to the prison.

As a perk however they do receive access to as much free fruit as they can stomach before nature takes its toll at no cost to the taxpayer.

Better still, given the prevalence of P in prisons, it is likely that the jailbirds are also very productive workers.

Hopefully, some of them may even have an apple fall on their heads, so that like Isaac Newton, they too can realise the gravity of their situations.

And it will keep their busy little fingers and minds occupied. Other criminals with too much time on their hands decided to expend their energy bashing each other, as gang violence broke out in Wanganui. There seems to be an easy way to rectify that situation. Simply leave them to it, and then jail the survivors.

The fact that the inmates are picking apples - the most symbolic of fruits, representative of sin, temptation, and the fall of Man, after it was plucked from the Tree of Knowledge and passed to Adam by Eve (if we are to believe some versions of history) - only adds to the irony.

It could be argued that the sex offenders should continue their labours into the pruning season.

Each day they could be issued a pair of pruners and asked to think of the heavy-handed metaphor associated with their toil each time they snip a branch. They could chant, "This could be me if I interfere with someone again" as a mantra, while they clip and snip their way to rehabilitation.