Jay Kuten: Anger will hinder progress

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Few things are more disheartening than having members of one's family murdered. I know something of what that feels like as nine members of my immediate family were murdered in 1942 by members of the Ukrainian Galician division of the SS. Hence I have both empathy and sympathy for Amy Chiles whose sister Vicki was brutally murdered. At the same time I must respectfully disagree with her mischaracterisation of the actions of former MP Chester Borrows.

Former Deputy Justice Minister Borrows is now tasked with heading a commission to examine our justice system.

From every perspective, including that of victims, the present system is a failure. New Zealand's incarceration rate is one of the highest in the OECD, at 220 per 100,000 population. The 10,565 prisoners costs us $962,550,000 p.a.

That the money spent yields a poor return is evident from the fact that 49 per cent of prisoners are re-convicted in the first four years after release.

Mr Borrows and his fellow commissioners, among whom there is already a victim's advocate, need to look at our justice system and search for methods that produce better outcomes.

As a business model, our present system makes no sense. The only benefit accrues to those who run private prisons and the scandals and brutalisation within those private run prisons is a disgrace that we need to avoid repeating.

Chester Borrows is the ideal person to head up such a commission. I've been a critic of his policies when I disagreed with them. I've found fault with his timorous approach to legislation and to his injection of his religious beliefs into legislation on marriage equality. However, I've never doubted his honesty or integrity. I've been encouraged by his acknowledgment of institutional racism and class bias in the court system.

Borrows' open-mindedness has allowed him to look at the facts on gay marriage and to change his position. That ability, to change one's mind when the facts warrant, is an attribute that gives assurance about his willingness to look for the best outcomes to make meaningful changes in the justice system that can benefit everyone.

We all benefit when people who are convicted of crimes are enabled to change their behaviour. As it now stands, those 10,565 prisoners are a net loss to our society, in every way, economically and socially. Their families also pay the price for their criminality and their resultant incarceration. If they have children (and most do) those children, raised in absence of their father, have a much higher probability of ending up in prison.

A significant percentage of those in prison are lacking in fundamental skills and certainly in education. Programmes focused on providing those skills have been demonstrated to decrease recidivism.

Restorative justice, a tool that may be of value in future crime prevention, is not to be "soft" on crime or criminals but rather to act in accord with hard fact to seek a more just equitable outcome.

Ms Chiles is right that nothing can bring back her sister. Neither restorative justice nor the call of SST for harsher punishment can do that. Victims did not choose to become victims but survivors can better honour those victims by joining with those who seek a better outcome for all than to continue their own victimisation by joining with a disreputable group like Sensible Sentencing Trust.

SST lost all credibility when its cruel disposition was exposed with Garth McVicar's delight at an alleged offender's shooting death, and its bigotry by the prediction of a crime wave were marriage equality to become law.

SST seeks mainly vengeance. Gandhi, no pushover in a fight for justice, said: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

We can respect Amy Chiles' grief and its accompanying anger but we cannot allow those legitimate individual feelings from blinding us to the task of creating a more just and efficient justice system, one that is more likely to prevent crime and prevent a repetition of what happened to Amy Chiles' sister.