Softly, softly
The wave of crimes happened in South Auckland ([1],[2],[3]) are, yes, very sad, especially when all three victims are ethnic minorities.
However, I have no reason to panic.
If my memory serves me right, the crime rate have been gradually decreasing since the abolishment of capital punishment.
A report by New Zealand Police [PDF]showed that the homicide case number decreased in last few years, despite the population increasing.
So, please don't panic when bad things happened together. South Auckland is more like a localised problem, it should not be a nationwide panic.
Tough laws can solve crime problems in short term, but has little effect for reducing the crime in long term.
I'm very glad that people yelling on the Internet won't have a chance to actually run the country - New Zealand already has one of the world's highest incarceration rate, keep throwing people in the jail is not expected to be effective.
Jail is used to keep bad eggs away so make the rest of us safe, not the place to dump and punish the so-so ones.
Most serious offenders started his life with very little thing: wag schools, tag, car theft, burglar ... then leads on to the "bigger" job.
The problem about our system is that, the punishment for those small things can hardly be called a punishment. People won't learn if they can get away with their small offences, and then leads to the bigger ones.
What I suggest is to make those people really hurt, not just physically. Charged with a small offence like stealing is a very shameful thing back in China, those people usually hide his "shameful" past.
But here, people can tell me that he "had problems" with the police with very little hesitation.Our attitude, especially those related or close to the offenders, are too soft to make them realise that they have done anything wrong.
Huge amount of effort and time is required to change educate those with below average income and poorly educated and change their mind, but things don't just happen overnight.
For the shorter term result, tough law is still the best way to go. However, this is quite unlikely to happen as long as the Jail still looks more like the Hilton Hotel.
Taxpayers pay at least $40,000(should be much higher than this, I cannot remember) to keep an criminal stay in jail.
I have heard a very creative idea from someone, suggests that we can export those people to serve jail sentences elsewhere like Indonesia, Thailand, or China. It will cost much less and the jails there are more closer to the hell rather than the Hilton Hotel.
However, this is unlikely to happen because of the human rights issues.
What people should really realise is that, when a criminal committed an offence to someone else, he/she automatically gives up some of his/her own human rights.
Sure the jailed still have the right to food and warmth, but using floor heating system rather than an extra layer of quilt is just sending the wrong message to those people.
