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3 December 05
Solving
Crime not Rocket Science
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One
of the core roles of a government in a democracy is to protect
its citizens from crime. In 1999, New Zealanders were given
the opportunity to send the government a message on that
issue: by voting overwhelmingly in favour of Norm Wither’s
law and order referendum, the public indicated they wanted the
justice system reformed and violent crime reduced.
That
is why the shocking death on Monday of Kevan Newman, one of
the three people stabbed by a mental health patient who went
berserk with a knife, is so tragic: dreadful violent crimes
committed by dangerously mentally ill patients are not
uncommon, yet the government continues to fail to adequately
address the problem.
The police warn that
there is a significant danger to society from people with
serious mental illness and violent tendencies who are living
free in our communities. They say that if the public really
understood the threat from those who live unstable lives of
crime, laced with drug use and psychotic episodes, they would
demand action.
Yet, in spite of
serious overcrowding in hospital mental health units and a
revolving door policy, that sees patients who should
hospitalised turfed out in order to admit more urgent cases,
the government has continued to turn a deaf ear.
New Zealand urgently
needs to follow the lead of Britain and the United States by
funding patient care in ‘sheltered villages’. These modern
24-hour residential care facilities are for people assessed as
severely mentally ill and prone to dangerous psychotic
episodes. Sheltered villages would provide quality living
conditions for those who are not sick enough to be in hospital
but are too sick to live without full supervision, as well as
for patients in need of short term respite care.
Until now, the
government has been strongly opposed to the establishment of
sheltered villages, but with support for the concept growing
within communities and across the political spectrum, maybe
this latest tragedy will be the catalyst for change.
Norm Withers 1999
referendum, also demanded more rights for the victims of
crime, a cause widely championed by Garth McVicar of the
Sensible Sentencing Trust. Garth is our guest columnist in
this week’s NZCPD
Forum.
A great deal of
research has been carried out into the causes of crime and
what can be done to reduce it. It is not rocket science.
Following are five steps that would help to make New Zealand a
safer country.
Firstly, in the
overwhelming majority of cases, crime starts in the home with
children who become predisposed to criminal activity. While
some hard-core criminal families teach their children how to
commit crimes, it is usually the abuse and neglect of children
by their parents that leads the child into a downward spiral
of alienation, underachievement and crime. More often than
not, welfare dependency, substance abuse, educational failure,
violence, and family instability all form part of the mix.
With prison statistics
showing that around three quarters of all sentenced inmates
have never been married, it is clear that if our young men
moving towards adulthood have attained a good education and
have the prospects of a worthwhile career, they are far more
likely to look to marriage and a family than crime.
That is why reforming
the welfare system to eliminate long term benefit dependency,
encouraging marriage and strengthening the family, as well as
ensuring children succeed at school, play vital roles in
reducing crime. Further, it is important that appropriate help
and support are made readily available to parents at every
stage of a child’s development, starting even before the
baby is born.
Secondly, since it is
well known that young people who should be at school commit a
large proportion of crime, the government needs to adopt a
zero-tolerance approach to truancy. That means not only
tackling irresponsible parenting head on by forcing parents to
obey the law and send their children to school, but also
ensuring that schools are playing their part by providing high
quality teaching to their students.
The third step to
reducing crime is to give the police the ability to do their
job properly - boosting police resources and numbers (they
would need 1,700 more police to match the policing rate in
Australia), and undertaking a comprehensive audit of police
practice and laws in order to eliminate the excessive
time-wasting bureaucratic red tape that now keeps police
behind their desks instead of out on the beat.
But most importantly,
zero-tolerance policing should become standard practice –
getting tough on petty crime in order to prevent perpetrators
graduating to more serious crime, cracking down on the small
number of serious repeat offenders who are responsible for
most of the crime in any community, and having a strong public
presence to help reclaim streets for families and children.
The fourth step is to
ensure that crime doesn’t pay through tougher sentencing and
-with almost 80 percent of violent offenders re-offending
while on parole - abolishing parole.
This should be done in conjunction with comprehensive
prison reform: moving the 10 percent of prisoners who are
seriously mentally ill into proper forensic institutions where
they can have access to appropriate treatment, and moving the
50 percent of low security prisoners into facilities where
they can be used to provide contract labour to help pay for
their keep. That would leave plenty of room in the prison
system for the serious violent criminals who should be locked
away, and who clearly need intensive rehabilitation and
management if they are ever able to be successfully
reintegrated back into society.
The final step is to
provide better support for those people in society who,
because of mental impairment, can become a serious danger to
others. I have already outlined the sheltered village concept
for the mentally ill who can become psychotic if they fail to
take their medication, but more must be done for drug and
alcohol addicts.
British research from
the Home Office shows that while drug related crime has risen
sharply over the last decade, other crime has remained
relatively stable. That is probably the case here as well, but
rather than reducing the problem by helping addicts to beat
their habit, the government has not only been busy closing
down treatment centres, but through a ‘harm minimisation’
strategy is teaching children how to use drugs, instead of how
to avoid and reject them!
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We do need to
provide more capacity for these people to be cared for in
proper facilities. The concept of the State trying to save
money by forcing them out into the community is an abject
failure for many of them. Their families often do not have the
skill or training to know how best to look after them, and it
imposes a huge strain on the families own relationships as
well.Then we have these awful incidents were one loses control
and totally innocent people are affected by their behaviour.
This is not an acceptable price for society to pay!
When
I first heard about the attack in Henderson early last week I made
3 predictions: He would be on welfare, he
would be known to Mental Health, and he would probably already
have come to attention of police and be known to them. Would
not a better solution have been if the Sports shop owner had
been able to effectively defend himself? It may not have
prevented a death but it would have prevented the death of an
innocent man and possibly tens of thousands of dollars in
medical costs.
The politicians
need to be asking themselves why, in less than a lifetime ,
homicides have risen from about one a year to 150 or
thereabouts. The country is now crime and drug ridden.
Because the
genuine mentally ill are getting turfed out into the community
and all the money is getting spent to rehabilitate the drug
addicts in our communities. The majority of patients in the
so-called mental hospitals are either drug addicts or alcohol
problem patients. This is contributing to our soaring
crime rate. The sooner our drug laws are changed the
better. Follow in Singapore's steps and we will have a
safe country again and our genuine mentally ill will then be
able to get the service they deserve.
We are enmeshed
in so much law that its no wonder there are mental problems.
Please, fewer but enforcable laws.
30 years ago
people trusted the police. Now, every time you drive, the
enemy pops up. I would be interested in views of a
referendum of separating police from road traffic duties - just
about everyone I talk too is for this.
Reopen the
Mental health institutions as the UK did when it found the
same experiment they tried didnt work. You will find that the
prison population will drop at the same time.
Increase funding
to attract quality professionals. Rebuild facilities to house
dangerous persons. Increase funding for those who have no
ability to pay for medications.
Discontinue the
ridiculous practice whereby if a family member of a
psychiatric patient feels it necessary to contact the
patient's psychiatrist, then the psychiatrist must tell the
patient!
In my experience
with a schizophrenic son, the problem was the stupid privacy
act. He ( although he was not rational ) had to make the
decision to be treated. Our GP was not enpowered to do this.
There is some
extremely good work being done by the early intervention
teams, crisis response teams, psychiatric
hospitals,psychiatric wards in general hospitals, out- patient
clinics and mental health workers in the community but these
facilities are under resourced and the staff poorly paid.
More money needs to be chanelled into this area of health
care.
Responsible
monitoring of medication, not leaving it to the patient to
decide he/she is well and need not take medication. Safe,
supervised, residential care where able patients can lead a
normal life within a protective framework.
As I have been a
JP for some years sitting in courts my main concern is the
number of accused that I have seen in recent times who are in
some cases not fit to know what they are doing and should not
be remanded in custody to prison. There needs to be safe
shelters where they can be remanded to so that overseeing
their medication is of prime concern.
Having served in
the Police for 37 years, I know better than most how neglected
this sector of the community are. In my last appointment
I was responsible for a busy Police cell block. Add to that
the number of people arrested under the influence of solvents
- paint, glue etc - and you have a very toxic mix. The number
of people arrested and detained that had a serious mental
or intellectual disability was extremely high, but to get them
care required superhuman efforts on the part of very busy
supervising Senior Sergeants. Add to that the number of people
arrested under the influence of solvents - paint, glue etc -
and you have a very toxic mix. At the same time as the
public are calling for such people to be cared for properly
(that does not mean a Police or prison cell but a secure
hospital facility) people like Helen Clark (as Minister
of Health she started this in the 1980's) are saying that
community care is the answer. Frankly she does not begin
to even understand the nature of the problem. It is well past
the time when the public, including those who have mental
illnesses, got a fair deal.
Many
blame "organisational culture" for the failure of
the State to care for the Mentally Ill & public at large.
Many blame the mentally ill. That is ignorant & stupid.
In truth, it is the refusal of officers charged with the
protection of the public (NZ Police & State Health Psych
Crisis Teams) to take personal responsibility that leads to
death of the innocent. To say that "it is the weekend ...
we are not paid to work outside work week hours ..."
(Psych Team) or "It is not our job to be dealing with the
Mentally Ill ..." (NZ Police) means they are accessories
to the crime in that they refused to secure the situation
before it happened. The Police after all, are under an
obligation to honour an agreement they signed five years ago
with the Ministry of Health to safely transport mentally ill
sufferers to care when required. The Police visited the
sufferer concerned on the morning the incident happened ...
yet refused to act. The Psych Team had visited him the day
before (Sunday) ... after his family had repeatedly
warned them of impending danger ... yet refused to act stating
they were in a "professional position to assess him
within 20 minutes" when clearly it was unprofessional,
incompetent and arrogant in the extreme. All it would have
taken would be for a psych team member to administer the
sufferer a depo injection ... On the spot ... Or as an
outpatient ... And the sufferer's condition would have
improved avoiding the death ... Possibly without even the need
to commit him to hospital as an inpatient until later
...
There should be
restablished secure places for those with mental problems such
as Cherry Farm where a lot of normal people used to admit
themselves for a 'time-out'. This also gives the community a
greater sense of security The original concept of putting people
with mental illness into the communiy was great for some, but
has been a disaster for those that could not handle the open
living situation.
The mentally ill
are not adequately provided for with models of health and
tailored pathways to direct the years of their lives towards
healthy outcomes. The victim mentality prevails through the
Invalid Benefit system and mental health profession.
First more
Facilities. I am aware of a mentally ill person seeking
assistance at an institution and being told to come back in
the morning when they were open.
Increasing
(introducing) real support for those families who currently
struggle to care for their mentally ill family members.
Stop catering
for the scumbag criminals and support the victims. Stop the PC
Nonsense like what happened in KawaKawa where the farmer was
taken to court for protecting his property while he was being
robbed-and was almost bankrupted having to fight for his
rights.
Additional
psychiatric (not psychological or counselling) resources),
accessible directly to mental health sufferers and their
families. Half way houses, sheltered villages or whatever you
wish to call them, available to mental health sufferers as an
alternative, at their choice, to being admitted to or released
from the acute care system.
Villages similar
to hammner Springs - take them away from health boards.
Have a
comprehensive education system in all our schools to teach
kids the misery of drug addiction, instead of teaching them
how to use condoms and encouraging premarital sex.
Abolish the Family planning outfit.
I'm
attaching an invaluable report on the effects of behaviour
in prisons and schools simply by altering (for the better) the
diet available: (see attached) Forget
tougher punishments and hiring more police. The solution to
crime and violence is on your plate. Here’s how healthy food
can reduce aggressive behaviour http://www.odemagazine.com/article.php?aID=4143
Absolutely
essential that there are medium security villages for long
term care: these must have attached high security units for
psychotic care. Next step is an organised half-way house
with sheltered employment (OUTside of present job law
requirements!) that will re-equip patients with social
skills to reintegrate into society. Some will of course stay
here forever. Will it work? Oh yes, I have actually worked
overseas in such a system for ten years...So, wake up
NZ!
Special homes with 24 hour
care centers should be provided. If doctors want
to release these unwell patients, then there should be a
house next door to the doctors for the released patients to
live in so they are not just sent back into society
where they are free to do as they please. It seems that Labour is
all too fond of just paying lip service, and contuinue
to abslove themselves of blame.
More government support for
the sheltered workshops for IHC patients - stop the
insistence on making the existing workshops pay award rates
for people who may only be capable of working 1 - 2 hours a
day.
I worked at Porirua
Hospital when it was a farm, producing meat and vegetables
for self sufficiency. The unwell had jobs there or in the
laundry or villa kitchens or cleaning the villas or working
in the sewing rooms. These villas were staffed minimally as
the people who were stable lived there. In the acute wards
were the psychoitic people and as their treatment succeeded,
they moved to the villas or out into the community. They
could go home to their families for week ends or over public
holidays, and if they were unwell when they were out the
families knew that they were free to return them
immediately. If there was non- compliance, then a staff
member who knew the ill person went and brought them back.
Then the 'do gooders' came and inspected the place and said
that they could do these jobs in the community and could
live there too. Trouble was, when the ill person got up in
the morning at the villa, a staff member administered the
medication, and if the person appeared to becoming floridly
psychotic, they suggested that they did not go to work
today, and treatment began. When they were well, they
returned to their job, which I might add, they took great
pride in. The people had socials, movies, games
evenings and bingo nights. There was a cafe to meet and
mingle and a totally accepting environment. Now I am not
saying it was perfect, for there was over-crowding and the
psychiatric medicine was in its infancy, but it was so much
better than it is today and the land sits there empty and
wasting.
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