Monday, June 23, 2008

150 Violent Crimes a Day

The Prime Minister’s claim that incidents of violent crimes are dropping is just not correct. Over the past nine years, violent offending has risen by 43% across the country, while in areas such as Counties-Manukau it has risen by 64%. Last year alone there were 56,983 recorded violent offences - an average rate of more than 150 a day.

In a short period of just nine days three people within a few miles of each other were murdered.

People are angry and demanding that harsher penalties are imposed on violent criminals. National has stated it will build more prisons. What it needs to consider is whether it will reintroduce private prisons. The one prison in Auckland that was run by the private sector was more secure, more humane had a better rehabilitation record and was cheaper to run. Only Labour’s socialist ideology demanded that it be closed.

1 comment:

Kevin Owen said...

Hi Dick

Below is an update on the Criminon Indonesia Pilot Program, being implemented throughout their
365 prisons with government backing.

It's sucess rate and cost far out-way anything we have in New Zealand.
It could easily be implemented into our prisons, therefore
rehabilitating every inmate before they were released back into the Community.

CRIMINON INDONESIA• Recidivism Rate of Criminon Graduates is 1.25%. Of 300 Criminon graduates
released, only 4 returned to prison. The success rate is 98.5%.
Indonesia has 365 prisons and after reviewing the success of the Criminon program in 6 of these, the Ministry of Justice has requested Criminon Indonesia’s cooperation in devising a roll out plan that will eventually bring the program to all of its prisons.
http://www.rehabnz.co.nz/pages/criminon-indonesia.html

Our government has been invited to view the pilot [one of many world wide] but has declined.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Regards,

KevinOwen@rehabnz.co.nz
http://www.rehabnz.co.nz

-----------------------------------

Criminon Indonesia
Criminon Indonesia is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) registered in Indonesia. It is licensed by Criminon International to use the crime prevention and criminal rehabilitation technology based on the developments of American writer and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard.

The officers of Criminon Indonesia are Ms Tuty Melashasih, co-founder and Executive Director and Mr. Aditya S. Hoegeng, co-founder and President.

Criminon Indonesia was set up in the beginning of the year 2002, after senior executives of the Ministry of Justice and the national board of Narcotics of Indonesia requested a training program for a group of their correctional staff.

In November and December 2002, Criminon Indonesia in cooperation with its support organization the Association for Better Living and Education office of Asia, based in Sydney Australia, conducted the first training program for 20 individuals from the Ministry of Justice, Department of Narcotics and Criminon Indonesia itself.

The second training program in April and May 2003, partially funded by the Government of Indonesia, successfully trained 21 individuals to Criminon Course Supervisors.

This training program included an extensive apprenticeship in two of Indonesia’s prisons, where the first 98 inmates were gotten through the basic Criminon rehabilitation courses. The newly trained Indonesian Criminon supervisors successfully taught the inmates the basics of how to study, Communication Skills and guided through the Criminon staple, The Way to Happiness course.

The program was then extended into 6 prisons, run by the Indonesian government staff members.

In the third phase, inmates who had successfully completed the Criminon rehabilitation components and done well, were trained up as Criminon course supervisors, apprenticed and put to work. This proved very successful. Not only did the newly trained inmate-supervisors regain a higher level of pride, feeling needed and seeing they could help others, they were doing very well handling the new inmate-students and economically this was a good solution.

Accomplishments

Since the beginning of the program in 2002, Criminon Indonesia has achieved the following:

• 1118 inmates completed the basic Criminon program (3 or four courses each).

• 29 correctional staff completed the basics 3 Criminon courses

• 84 instructors trained, among these 18 Ministry staff, 3 Criminon staff and 21 inmates.

• All inmates who were trained as supervisors and then released from prison after their term was up, returned to Criminon Indonesia, asking to continue to work as instructors, helping other inmates to achieve the same results they had.

• About 33% of all inmates gotten through the Criminon program were released early due to notable changes in conduct.

• Recidivism Rate of Criminon graduates is 1.25%. Of 300 Criminon graduates released, only 4 returned to prison. The success rate is 98.5%.

Indonesia has 365 prisons and after reviewing the success of the Criminon program in 6 of these, the Ministry of Justice has requested Criminon Indonesia’s cooperation in devising a roll out plan that will eventually bring the program to all of its prison.

The first step in this plan has been launched with one of the prisons being set up a s training academy for inmate-supervisors. So far the first 500 inmates have completed their training and are eagerly awaiting transfer to other prison facilities to implement the Criminon program there. The Ministry of devising a plan, whereby inmates who have completed the Criminon program in any Indonesian Prison and have shown they are doing well and thus are eligible for Criminon Supervisor training, will be transferred to this training prison, trained up to Criminon Supervisor certification and then dispatched out to other prisons in teams to implement the Criminon program.

On request of the Ministry, Criminon Indonesia is expanding its services to include Criminon’s drug rehabilitation components and once the materials are translated and staff trained, will move the program into the 15 special drug prisons.