Prisons moral and fiscal failure - English

Prisons moral and fiscal failure – English

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

It takes political courage to contradict the prevailing nostrums of the day, and National’s deputy prime minister and Finance Minister, Bill English, is to be commended for doing just this.

Opening a Families Commission’s 50 Key Thinkers forum in May, Mr English referred to prisons as a moral and fiscal failure. In so doing he burst the hot-air cloud of rhetoric and emotion that so often envelops discussions of crime and punishment in this country – and which runs contrary to what much evidence and research reveals about it.

Read Otago Daily Times editorial

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News category: Analysis and Comment.

Tags: Bill English, Justice System, Prison Reform, Prisons

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