Oops- sorry about that mate

For a nation that has become addicted to throwing people in prison, (and God do we love to throw people into violent, underfunded and corrupt prisons – second only to the bloody Americans), it’s always a bit embarrassing when we throw innocent people in prison. See the problem with dear little NZ is we don’t care too much about those groups in society who dip out of visibility, we don’t care about Prisoners, and as such the person responsible for looking after the prisoners end up not caring about prisoners. White NZ has done very well over the last decade from property speculation and have spent a lot of money on their cosmetically enhanced 40inch plasma TVs and don’t really want to hear about brown folk stealing those 40inch cosmetically enhanced plasma TVs, so a culture of lock ‘em up and throw away the keys develops, and within that culture the people who have to look after those prisoners end up not caring either. So we have a society that doesn’t care about the violent environment we send prisoners to, and the people employed to run the prisons don’t bother doing the right thing because they know that society doesn’t give a toss about the human trash that ends up getting dumped with them. This leads to the type of problems we’ve seen recently, corrupt prison staff, racist prison staff, a culture of intense and under reported violence, rapes (remember that rape last week, and one of the bloggers here jumped up and down and blamed the low security prisoner for being locked in with a high security prisoner as if it was the low security prisoners fault and how dare I report on the story– wasn’t that an eye opening moment of how ignorant some NZers are), and of course Liam Ashley getting strangled in the back of a police van because no one could be bothered following the rules, because no one in the public cares about prisoners welfare, so the staff don’t either.

Oh and add into that moral gumbo this story of 2 innocent blokes who went inside, wonder if the Police will apologise?

Wrongly jailed pair want Government apology
Two men who were wrongly convicted of arson and spent almost a year in prison could be eligible for $100,000 in compensation, a legal expert says. Phillip Johnston and Jaden Knight, both from Lower Hutt and in their early 30s, are seeking an apology from the Government after they were jailed for setting fire to the Manawatu Hotel in Foxton in 2003. They each spent 9 months in Manawatu Prison before their convictions were quashed in 2005. Retrials were ordered and Mr Johnston was last year found not guilty of the arson. Mr Knight was discharged this month after the Crown failed to offer evidence against him, ending more than three years' worry that began when police first laid charges. Legal expert John Miller said the amount of compensation depended on several factors, including the case against them and reasons for quashing the verdict, their individual characters and how traumatic the experience was. "We calculated a sum of about $10,000 a month, roughly, in these situations." Mr Knight's lawyer, Christopher Stevenson, reportedly said the pair had been "left cold by what's happened, numb. It's just been a completely shocking experience for them." He said they would be meeting to decide the next step. Both families have described the experience as traumatic. Mr Johnston's mother, Darrel Arcus, said her son had moved from Lower Hutt because of death threats since being found not guilty. Seeing her son behind bars was almost unbearable. "I hated it, hated it. I cried every time I came out because I knew he did not belong there. I knew he was innocent," she told the Manawatu Standard. The two were driving from Palmerston North to Lower Hutt in the early hours of November 12, 2003. When they got to Levin, they saw a police car with flashing lights and followed it to the hotel blaze. They were later questioned by police and charged with arson. The fire caused $300,000 of damage to the hotel and there had been a risk to human life, Judge Les Atkins said during sentencing. Mr Knight's mother, Neroli Edwards, has said her son was now looking for security work but was finding it hard to get on with his life. The detective in charge of the investigation, Peter Govers, has stood by the decision to press charges. "As far as I am concerned, it was a professional and thorough investigation and back then there was sufficient evidence to charge both of them," he told the Manawatu Standard. The investigation into the arson has been reopened.