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Wednesday, August 30, 2006

PRISON BLOG 8


Sedition 101

Being in prison has turned out to be a bit of a hassle. It’s frightfully annoying. Yes, detainment in a compound where everyone seems to relish the re-telling of their most violent irresponsible episodes could be seen as a refreshing break from the middle class drudgery of office politics, café brunches and interest rates, but what I would give to see something other than dried mashed potato and cabbage seemingly every night for tea. Whinging fucking Aucklanders! It’s Don Brash’s culinary heaven all right, but I’m missing eggs, pornography, etc.

The point of imprisonment is to frustrate the prisoner – to cause mental anguish. Outwardly this may appear to be putting the prisoner into a small room for many hours and having people to visit only once or twice a week for a couple of hours along with a deliberately boring regime of food, activities and limiting communication to the “outside”. Now that is what society’s all over the world would expect from their prison system. However the mental anguish (putting aside the obvious question of the appropriateness of this to achieve “rehabilitation”, reintegration and reform) is facilitated and aggravated at far more levels than it appears from the outside.

The internal procedures of the prison – the mechanisms used – supposedly to help prisoners are operated to achieve maximum inconvenience. I’m not even sure they are even to make it easier for the staff. The management seem highly suspicious of technology and this probably is due to their lack of education, and accounts for there being only the lowest entry-level computer courses on out-dated machines available to help prisoners.

Everything seems to need forms, in advance, that will then go missing, along with the thing it pertains to. The information to make sense of prison life is never given – it must be extracted by the prisoner over weeks or months bit by bit as each crisis arises. And even when something is stated in black and white on a noticeboard it can be countermanded by management – this, of course, is not explained- the prisoner will not be informed a request has been denied. The staff want to do their own lags as easily as possible. Ringing your own lawyer is almost impossible. Got a painful back problem and currently on medication – “welcome to prison life” says the prison nurse to one prisoner and she withholds his pain relief! On top of all the specific anxiety and frustration is the fact that the prisoner can be moved, without notice, immediately to any other unit or prison – all the social ties over many months (all the deals and credit and debts owing) are all wiped away without any goodbye and without warning.

For example I received a notice from two improbably friendly police officers who issued me with a compulsory DNA sample notice. It was going to happen in a month, “or we could do it now if you want”. Yeah right. Make sure you smear it on some really heinous crime scene, Arthur Allan Thomas style, while you’re at it mate. So I have to ask for a hearing before then based on the fact I can’t find any evidence that I was ever convicted of the crime they say warrants it. The notice says which part of the Act is applicable but not what it actually says – so I’m not even sure the stated crime is applicable. It might just be some cop trying to make his DNA sample quota for the quarter or something more nefarious. The problem is management refuses to let me ring the cop who authorized it to find out whether it’s legit or not. I’m supposed to wait until the police come to take the sample (mouth swab) and then object and it will go to court. I explained that if I leave it till then it becomes an offense (refusal to give a sample is 3 months prison/$2000 fine) and he just shrugs.

Anyway I have contacted my lawyers (they rang me) and hopefully it can be sorted out. The DNA sample is being ordered because of conviction for “Conspiracy to commit criminal damage”. That might be on the Police data base – it isn’t on the Correction Department – because I have since seen the file and I saw the original Warrant of Commitment to Prison, signed by the judge which lists two sedition convictions and no conspiracy criminal damage conviction. I know she was harsh and potentially evil, but I didn’t know she was stupid and negligent. I mean she had the Lyn of Tawa suburban housewife accent from hell but I gave her a bit more credit than to fuck up the conviction that I actually pleaded guilty to.

The systems are totally fucked aren’t they? I received a fines notice from the Justice Ministry too – wanting $2,253 in reparation for “Publish Seditious Material”. Welcome to Singapore. If you are new to this blog I’m in prison for (amongst other things – one of which apparently isn’t conspiracy criminal damage) Sedition. Being the editor of Tumeke! it is, naturally frustrating.

There are so many issues I would like to comment on, such as the Treaty of Waitangi 1992 statute of limitations bill that closed for public submissions last Friday. Why don’t they make all crimes null and void if done before 1992? Why is it that the Crown wants to exempt itself from the scrutiny of its own crimes? They can’t handle the truth – it’s called Sedition.

Tim Selwyn
Prison Blogger

15 Comments:

At 30/8/06 3:58 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Any one else seeing the hypocrisy here of a convicted criminal moaning about his "rights" being infringed

Pity TS didnt care much about anyone elses rights when he pulled his axe and fraud stunts.

Perhaps if he did he wouldnt be in the position he now finds himself in.

It goes both ways Selwyn.

 
At 30/8/06 4:06 pm, Blogger Bomber said...

...
Isn't the point Anon that if you go out of your way to make life difficult in prison the result is Prisoners more fucked up than when they went in? What happened to the 'judge a society by how it treats it's lowest members' - by protecting the rights of everyone, even those who have done wrong, we have the moral high ground. Don't we become as bad as the criminal when we allow their rights to be trampled, just as they have trampled the rights of others?

 
At 30/8/06 4:41 pm, Blogger Blair said...

Every time Tim has a post on here, some idiot comments about how he deserves everything he gets and should shut the fuck up. It's getting really old.

I am quite sure Tim accepts that prison is supposed to be punitive, but if he is complaining about the inefficiency of the prison system, not to mention being unable to contact his lawyer, that's perfectly legitimate. Considering everyone knows the sedition conviction was bullshit, he has a right to complain about that too.

Critics of what Selwyn has to say should get some balls and stop hiding behind anonymity.

 
At 30/8/06 5:00 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

blair - your bad manners are only exceeded by your bad manners.

Calling people who post anon ïdiots" and that they should "shut the fuck up" should give even you some hints.

Perhaps you have answered your own question.

Im sure even people like Selwyn would defend the right of others to have an opinion, anon or otherwise, dont you think?

 
At 30/8/06 5:52 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Amen Blair!

 
At 30/8/06 6:35 pm, Blogger Hated By Most said...

Anon 30/8/06 5:00 PM go play on the motorway.

 
At 30/8/06 6:44 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

msth8d
another superb comment, at least try to contribute something useful.

 
At 30/8/06 7:07 pm, Blogger andrew said...

Quite simply, anyone who comments behind the veil of anonimity is a coward, and, by their very anonimity, invalidate whatever argument they are trying to make.
Have the courage to stand by your convictions.

 
At 30/8/06 7:26 pm, Blogger Hated By Most said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At 30/8/06 8:59 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

geezz Boomer your standard of commenter is really,really, up there -

First there's blair who for some reason thinks everyone should have balls.

Then we have my favourite native - msth8d who seems to only have one insult(??) it has to do with playing on the motorway. But no it gets worse, He'll pay for a ball. Cutting,really cutting. Anon must be tearing out his/her hair at the humiliation of being owned by msth8d.

.. then you have some complete fuckwit called andrew who seems to think that a blogger identity makes you legitimate whereas using Anon doesn't. In fact using Anon makes you - 'a coward'.
HELLO

ANDREW YOU FUCKEN IDIOT anyone can go to blogger and make up any identity they wish, as many times as they wish.
This is the internets you fucktard.

Boomer you have lifted the standard of Tims blog immeasureably. I and all the rest of NZ thank you for this very important stand you are taking on these extremely pertinant issues.

AB

 
At 30/8/06 11:14 pm, Blogger Hated By Most said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At 30/8/06 11:19 pm, Blogger Hated By Most said...

AB lol is it lonely were you live, that space between your ears has NASA come up with a name for it yet, do us natives make you feel insecure? if you feel that compassionate about anon, because I said, for him to go play on the motorway why dont you join him?

you could make it a little competition and see who catches the biggest truck. Reading your comment are somewhat amusing yet boring, But I am always, reminded of a universal truth, "That a small mind and a BIG mouth are usually found together"

 
At 30/8/06 11:50 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Violence be it physical or in the form of threats or insults is not cool or constructive. If we tolerate this sort of behaviour here, is it really much wonder that NZ has such a problem stamping out other violence?

 
At 31/8/06 4:01 am, Blogger Cactus Kate said...

I smell a rat

The NZ Police are obviously a) acting on an order from the US for the DNA and/or b) still in collusion with Helen Clark to further punish our man.

Selwyn will now be accused of JonBenet Ramsey's killing now John Mark Kerr's DNA didn't match.

Watch this space.

 
At 2/9/06 5:46 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Peter, perhaps you could tell him to engage his brain first.

 

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