Party Prison

Party loyalty is a funny thing.

I've always been frustrated by the level of control exerted by party leadership in Australia.

One of the reasons is it makes things pretty predictable. The party that has the majority in the lower house (whether we are talking state or federal) is inevitably able to force through just about anything it wants, meaning there isn't exactly much of a contest about it.

Crossing the floor is not unheard of, but certainly something that can have enormous ramifications for the member in question.

I've explained previously why I've enjoyed the federal minority government (as a wonk, if not as a citizen) for this very reason. 

Of course, there is always the upper house, and the fact that senators/MLCs serve a longer term as well as the fact that it is extremely difficult to win more than half of those seats at any election (let alone control more than half at any one time) usually means that it is remarkable to have a majority in both houses (as Howard did towards the end of his tenure).

Of course, our Queensland siblings don't even have an upper house, which makes the LNP's demolition of Labor earlier this year all the more significant.

In the US, by contrast, there is a real contest about much of the legislation that comes before the congress. I don't know if it is because of the incredible loyalty Americans have to their State (I think it is safe to say that the US would dissolve the union before they got rid of the states) or because of the enormous size of their congress (their lower house has 435 members) but either way the votes actually matter - the passage of a lot of legislation through the lower house is far from guaranteed.

Now, inevitably there is horse-trading, and holders of valuable votes are able to win disproportionate spending in their districts - but to me this is better that than aniron-fist controlling the members.

What this inevitably means for NSW is that members are forced to support bills that they either have a personal objection to, or even bills that are awful for the voters in their seat.

Chris Gulaptis (the MLA for Clarence) is a great example of this.

Photo from here

Grafton gaol is being downsized - the capacity of the gaol is being reduced from 275 to 60, and 92 people will lose their jobs. Inevitably, Gulaptis is copping some stick - he fronted a rally of over 500 people protesting the closure last week.

Now,  think we can assume that Gulaptis must have had something to say internally about the plans to downsize the gaol. The decision arose out of a report earlier this year that said there was culture of bullying and harassment at the gaol, although why this means that the gaol must be downsized is unclear to me.

Self-preservation suggests that he must have had something to say. Gulaptis won the seat of Clarence in a by-election in November last year with a margin of 16% - but he must be anticipating a swing back to Labor at the next election, and if he becomes an unpopular local member then he may find himself in some trouble.

The problem is that he was forced to go out and publicly support the plans.  It is not hard to imagine how his local electorate reacted.

The result was these slightly ridiculous comments at the rally I mentioned earlier - he has apologised for stuffing up in trying to sell the plan to his electorate.

Photo from the ABC

I don't have the full text of his speech, but I think we can assume he didn't apologise for being part of a government that made the decision in the first place, not did he suggest that he fought hard against the changes.

My point is this - what would be the harm if he was let off the leash and able to "fight" the changes?

There is no danger of him actually doing any significant damage - the Coalition controls the lower house by an enormous margin. He wants to be re-elected in 2015, and the Coalition wants the same thing.

This change won't actually require a vote, but if it did - why shouldn't he be allowed to waltz across the floor and make a big fuss about going against what his party wants for the good of the people in his seat?

Instead, we have the slightly ridiculous situation of him trying to "sell" the plan to the people who are going to (he hopes) be voting for him in 3 years time.

It's not even like he is a member of the cabinet and therefore has to support the decision it has made (which is a bloody good reason to not have the executive drawn from the legislature, but that's another discussion).

A little recognition of the fact that these people are not only individuals but that they should have some loyalty to the people that voted for them would not only make the lower house more interesting - it would give politicians an opportunity to stand for something, rather than being a warm body, to be shuffled to the appropriate side of the chamber when told.

A Corrective Approach?

The debate over the cutting of corrective services jobs is, in some ways, an odd one.


On one hand, i have long been a proponent of identifying corrective options other than imprisonment.  That is not simply a function of my employment (criminal defence lawyer) - rather, my experience with the system has shown me that an alarmingly small number of offenders are "bad".


The typical criminal offender is not evil.  Childhood abuse, social dysfunction, drug abuse and resulting mental deficiency - these are the trends that defence lawyers see in serious offenders.


That is not to say that people should not be imprisoned - many offenders are a danger to the community.  Others need to be rehabilitated.  Moreover, the community needs to know that if you commit a serious offence then you risk a term of imprisonment.


But that does not mean that many people who end up in gaol could not be dealt with in another way that produces a better result for the community.


An example is the chronic kleptomaniac, who is far better dealt with by a referral into treatment rather than time in prison.


Unfortunately, a large proportion of the community has a fundamental misunderstanding about the conduct of the criminal justice system, fueled mostly by talk-back radio.

Perhaps this is a little mean.  On the other hand, perhaps it is 100% accurate.

The utterly indefensible survey being undertaken by the Victorian Government is a terrible and yet entirely unsurprising example of a government pandering to the perception that judges are "out of touch".

The survey can be found here, but please don't complete it.

It was for this reason that I loudly applauded the NSW Coalition for "swearing off" the law and order auction that had characterised previous NSW election campaigns.


Of course, as I wrote about here, they promptly ruined all their good work by enacting life sentences for cop killers.  As I said then though, given the offence remains extremely rare it will not have an appreciable impact on inmate numbers.


In any event, I am hopeful that the government will continue to investigate alternatives to imprisonment for offenders.  Whilst periodic detention was abolished last year (a decision I disagree with) it appears that Intensive Corrections Orders (info about them here, if you're interested), which were introduced in its place, have been a success to date.


I hope that NSW will not follow Victoria's lead in abolishing suspended sentences.  A suspended sentence is a manifestly useful and frequently appropriate sentencing option, and its abolition would inevitably lead to an increase in inmate numbers.


With the abolition of periodic detention numbers last year, those persons on Periodic Detention Orders are slowly leaving the system as their sentences end and they are not replaced by new offenders.


As of January 2011 (the most recent figures I have easy access to) approximately 1500 inmates were serving periodic detention.  Compared to a full-time custody total of approximately 10 000 inmates, that is a significant portion that is now being weaned out of the system.


Even if some people who would previously have been getting periodic detention are now been imprisoned full time, that is still a large number of spaces opening up.  The obvious implication is that it may be necessary and prudent to reduce capacity.  Any reduction in capacity will lead to a fall in staffing.


In fact, at the time that periodic detention was abolished, I accused the then Labor government making the changes, at least in part, because it would be a cheaper option.


Of course, there are two sides to the argument.  The government has spoken to the unions to "foreshadow wide budget cuts".  The Herald is reporting that Parramatta, Tamworth and Berrima may all close.

Parramatta Gaol. Photo from here

Once the cuts are officially announced, we can expect more talk about the savings and, if we are really unlucky, Labor's black-hole.


The opposition are already speaking: shadow attorney-general Paul Lynch was quoted in the Herald as saying that ''Fewer prison staff must mean prisons will be less safe. If the cuts cause longer prisoner lockdowns, then they'll make prisons even harder to manage.''


Hopefully the unions will be able to come up with a better argument than this, from Public Service Association general secretary John Cahill: "It's all about money, not rehabilitating inmates ... which is a good short-term approach but when they get out they're more cranky and they're more likely to reoffend."


It's hard to imagine a sillier analysis - I'm no criminologist, but I suspect that you would find that "ex-inmate crankiness" is pretty low on the list of causes of crime.


In any event, this all comes as the government continues its tussle with Fred Nile over ethics classes, which looks more likely to become a major problem if this tweet from @marktobinsydney is to be believed:

With a little luck, the government will be able to cut through the rhetoric on correctional services with some numbers about prison populations and the fact that there is simply excess capacity in the system.


A commitment that conditions at the prisons (for staff and inmates) will not be negatively affected should go a long way to assuaging concerns.  Of course, whether that is a commitment they can make is another question.


What O'Farrell will be desperately hoping is that this does not become another front he has to fight, as it seems likely that he is going to have his hands fairly full in the months to come.