JustCommunity - NZ

18/06/2022

If both prison staff on the one hand and prisoners on the other are each complaining separately about being unsafe in prisons, clearly the prison environment and philosophy itself and the prisons’ rules of engagement inside prisons need reviewing.
When a system is harming both the staff and the guests there’s clearly something wrong with the approach and methodology.

Working conditions are “critically unsafe”, efforts to reduce assaults are failing and it's only time until another prison guard is killed, the union warns.

01/06/2022

Get the whole picture:

"Implicit bias training" is insufficient if you're not aiming at dismantling structural racism and all the vestiges of settler colonialism, chattel anti-Blackness and carceral geographies.

I would even argue that so-called "bias training" undermines the fostering of critically conscious and courageous conversations about racism because it stamps racism as an unintended lapse in judgement and not an exploitation of white supremacist, cishet, capitalistic power structures orchestrated to keep us in a debilitating stasis of chaos and stress...so that we don't attempt to topple our hegemony.

— Dr Arash

20/05/2022

In an interview with Stuff in March, Fitzgerald, a veteran cop of more than 30 years’ experience, who was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2017 for his services to police and the community, acknowledged the judge’s “opinion” about police techniques being used to “unacceptable excess” in the Tolley interviews. However, he insisted that “overuse is not criticism of the model”.

Architect of controversial interviewing method had intimate oversight of its use in case where false confession extracted from murder suspect.

16/05/2022

Here’s another example of a wealthy state using and abusing technology for their own advantage: manipulation and active release of video to undermine the apparent murder of an international journalist covering an Israeli raid.

Unfortunately, as much as video footage can expose use of force, the powers that have that force at their disposal also have video editing and manipulation and misrepresentation powers to hide that use of force especially when unlawfully used on civilians.

“According to rights activists, Israel had repeatedly used slow-moving investigations to “whitewash” the killing of Palestinian civilians living under Israeli military rule.

“Israeli police said they attacked the procession because mourners waved Palestinian flags and chanted nationalist slogans. An official Israeli police account shared drone video to support the authorities’ claim that two of the mourners had thrown rocks at them. But a comparison of that video to ground-level news footage showed that the police video had been edited to remove the initial police charge and slowed down to make it seem as if a man who just waved his arms in frustration had thrown something at the officers.”

Israeli police assaulted mourners carrying the casket of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American reporter, the same day Israel’s army admitted it might have killed her.

24/04/2022

Check out this job listing on Do Good Jobs.

23/04/2022

OPINION: It’s easy to paint Kaoss Price as the bad guy. But there must be room in his story to see the once promising young rugby player as a victim too.

12/04/2022

Help JustCommunity (and) develop as a community advocate for underprivileged and marginalised!

[Please share this unique Law Clerk role which we are looking to close applications for next week.]

- Unique role that entails serving indigenous and diverse communities
- Important cases: coronial and commission of inquiries affecting NZ society
- Fairness and access to justice key underpinnings of role

This is an opportunity to be exposed to important NZ inquiries (including coronial inquiries and commission of inquiries) and to advocate for vulnerable individuals and whanau across a diversity of backgrounds in courts and tribunals.

We will also consider applicants without an undergraduate law degree who may have post-graduate qualifications in law and/or have experience in relevant settings. If you are unsure about applying, we encourage you to do so; we’re passionate about enriching experiences — including learning and development experiences for community advocates — and enriching the service we provide our communities through unique qualities you may offer us now or as you begin your journey.

We invite you to bring your organising, administrative and analytical skills to helping us reach the next level of service to the communities we serve.

03/04/2022

We’ve had many cool capable people work with us at JustCommunity (paid and voluntary) over the past several years. We are now seeking a steady safe pair of hands to help us stay on top of things for the coming year(s). This is a chance to be exposed to a number of important cases and coronial inquiries across a diversity of needs and backgrounds.

Check out this job listing on Do Good Jobs.

31/03/2022

For me as an Iraqi, however, the memory of Albright will forever be tainted by the stringent sanctions she helped place on my country at a time when it was already devastated by years of war. Millions of innocent Iraqis suffered terribly and hundreds of thousands died because of the sanctions which, in the end, achieved almost none of Washington’s policy objectives. As we remember Albright’s life and achievements, we must also remember those innocent Iraqi lives lost because of her policy decisions.

The late US diplomat, who thought the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children were ‘worth it’, was no ‘force for human rights’.

28/03/2022

From setting the stage for the Iraq War to acting as a brand ambassador for a pyramid scheme, Clinton’s secretary of state did it all.

25/03/2022

Critical thinking
Buchbinder and Harris stress that they aren't anti-medicine and their aim isn't to erode trust in doctors. What they are shooting for is science-informed healthcare, with more critical thinking from medics and greater health literacy among patients.

"Many doctors agree with us," says Buchbinder. "Some with vested interests may not be so happy, but I think most are starting to see that this is the right way."

One of the procedures they highlight is knee arthroscopy, a keyhole surgery that "cleans out" the knees of people with damaged cartilage or meniscal tears. Many studies have shown it to be no more effective than placebo or exercise therapy for most conditions, yet it is still often recommended to treat degeneration of the knee.

Listener: Too much medicine is making us sick, doctors say in a new book.