We are being saturated with political promises to be tough on crime and tough on criminals. If you have never served time in prison or visited a family member or supported someone in strife then my advice is to throw the political pamphlet in the bin.

There is a brutal hardness about prison. It is unrelenting in its diminishing of the human spirit. It is frightening in its ever-present threat to your healthy existence and demands a hardness in response. It is difficult to picture rehabilitation as possible in that environment.

So when someone next knocks on your door to tell you to vote for their party which is tough on crime, I suggest you ask if they have ever been to prison, and find out if they really know what they are talking about. Do they even appreciate there are serious alternatives to prison? We need to spend time talking about them.

Some people think there is only crime and punishment and nothing in between. Most likely they have never been to one of Aotearoa’s three specialist Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Courts — two are located in Auckland and one in Hamilton.

Consider the scene for a moment. A packed drug treatment facility: friends and family of former drug users who are graduating from their experience of having been clean of drugs sufficiently long to finish the programme. This will not finish their journey — it is to remain clean for the rest of their lives.

One by one we hear the testimony of the experience. It is gritty and devastating in its honesty and pathos. Children are witnessing their fathers and mothers own their journey that nearly killed them and destroyed many of the relationships around them.

These are lives, smashed by drugs, that had almost lost hope in the justice system. This was before two visionary judges, Emma Aitken and Lisa Tremewan, pleaded with Justice Ministers to try another way to address their addictions.

Out of their pleadings came the Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court which began as a pilot in 2012 and is still growing. It is showing success.

As the graduates receive their pounamu signifying the completion of the course, they join the line for the harirū or hongi where they are embraced by the judges — often those that had sent them to jail in the first instance.

There is no soft option about the way the District Court describes this intervention.

“The court is solutions focused and aims to ‘break the cycle’ by treating the causes of offending. It targets offenders who would otherwise be imprisoned, but whose offending is being fuelled by their unresolved ‘high-needs’ issues of addiction or dependency. They are also assessed as being ‘high-risk’ in terms of their non-compliance: in other words, past sentences and court orders made have not changed their situation. Consequently, they are on a treadmill of offending, typically being punished but then going on to reoffend.

“As an alternative to prison, the court applies evidence-based best practices in a potentially transformative programme of case management, treatment, drug testing, monitoring and mentoring.

“Sentencing is deferred while participants go through the rigorous programme, which includes regular court appearances to check on progress, and may take one to two years to complete.”

This is a circuit breaking intervention that redeems lives. So as the fervour about reducing crime rises in anticipation of this year’s election, make it your personal “citizen test” to challenge the banality of solutions.

Don’t be silent when you hear nonsense being spoken among your friends and companions about crime and punishment. Take the time to read up about the Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court and use it in your conversation.

Often it is just the conversation with friends that can have a really redemptive outcome as we address our prejudices and look for new solutions to the most taxing of challenges.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 285 Sept 2023: 3