Editorial: Self-promoting trust hands out rough justice

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

Question: Who is likely to be more effective in setting inmates at Kaitoke prison on the right path?

(1) Someone who perhaps shares their upbringing and some of their experiences, talks their language and has the respect of their wider community?

Or (2) Corrections Minister Judith Collins telling them to stop being naughty boys?

Prison can turn the young and impressionable into hardened criminals, and there are plenty who, having been there once, end up going back again and again.

So if we are serious about rehabilitation, then Whanganui prison volunteer Ngapari Nui seems like just the sort of guy to help inmates find their way to a better, law-abiding future.

And yet Mr Nui is no longer able to offer that help, having been stood down from his role because of his Black Power connections.

This has happened because the Sensible Sentencing Trust has kicked up a fuss and stomped around in righteous indignation, attracting fellow stompers along the way.

The trust does not deal in rehabilitation. If all the crims were rehabilitated, it would no longer be able to enjoy posturing in the spotlight.

Crime and outrage are its lifeblood; its self-promotion depends on exploiting fear and preying on people at their most distraught and vulnerable moments. It needs victims.

Now, it seems, it has inadvertently created another victim - Mr Nui who was, by all accounts, doing good work and has found himself in the public pillory. The trust has turned justice on its head - guilty until proven innocent.

I do not know if Mr Nui has a criminal record, but he may have done some things in his life that he now regrets. Then again, who among us are saints? I think the saying goes: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

And Mrs Collins who, as a minister of the Crown, should be serving all the people of New Zealand, including those behind bars, has shown herself to be a politician first and foremost, preferring to play to her political constituency rather than providing some balance to the trust's self-serving apoplexy.