DOWN TO THE DOCTORS: A systemic problem in the system

Unlike the Prime Minister, Libertarianz leader Dr Richard McGrath is unsurprised to learn a convicted sex offender has these last few years been alive and well and driving children around in his school’s van.

Isn't it reassuring to know that whatever their many other manifest failings, our robust justice and education systems can at least ensure that New Zealand children won't be put at risk by having convicted sex offenders teaching them in our taxpayer-funded factory schools.

Well, mostly.

There is  this guy who taught at eight schools around the country before he was rumbled.  The Prime Minister is puzzled.

John Key said it was known that the offender was "a fairly devious person.” "But we just don't know exactly why the system has failed to pick them up and it's just absolutely critical we restore that confidence," Key said. 
            The Government saw the case as a "potentially very serious issue" that may involve a number of agencies. "We want to make sure we understand fully what's gone on here, whether there is potentially a systemic problem in the system or whether it's a one off situation that it would have been very, very difficult to pick up," Key said.

Not just a problem in the system or a systemic problem. This is a fully fledged “a systemic problem in the system.” That  puts it in a whole other league of fuck up altogether. One that needs “a very full understanding” to work the fuck out.

Or not. Perhaps it’s actually very simple.

And it is.

The problem, John, is that our justice system gives special treatment to sex offenders, particularly child-rapists. It’s as simple as that. It separates sex offenders from other prisoners; it protects their anonymity, regularly suppressing sex offenders’ names at the time of their conviction; it fails to "rehabilitate" them—and fails to care that it doesn’t, (while continuing to reward the programmes that haven’t); and it neglects to keeps a close eye on sex offenders once they are released from prison—invariably at a much earlier date than their victims would have anticipated, and often without their victims even having been told. 

In short, it’s a shambles, John.

In fact, it took a member of the public to tip off one of your eight government schools—where said dirtbag was head of the Maori "department"—that this sexo was driving kids around in the school van. This, despite the dirtbag being on an obviously mis-named Extended Supervision Order.  Proof if proof were needed, John, that it takes more than fine words and naming an order “Extended Supervision” to make any of that supervision happen.

So while the “systems” in place in the Injustice Department are set up to help the sex offenders, while ignoring their past and future victims, the systems in place in the factory schools are more focussed on teachers delivering the Department’s latest warm and fuzzies, instead of focussing on who those teachers are and what they’re doing to the children delivered to them by the state.

There is an alternative to this farce, however. A clear alternative. Indeed, you could say a completely new system. One in which the folk who matter get to pay the piper and call his tunes. One in which parents themselves would have control over the purse strings, and a real say in what (and by whom) their children are educated. Competition between schools would weed out incompetent and predatory teachers quick smart. Of course the mainstream parties would never want anything that extreme.

No, sir, the current system is just fine by them, thank you very much. It’s only a systemic problem in the system, after all. So if it ain't broke, don't fix it.       

See ya next week!
Doc McGrath