Paying the bill

The government could have to pay up to $4.5 million to prisoners imprisoned under the Corrections Department's "Behavioural management Regime". This is what happens if you run an unlawful and inhumane system of imprisonment, and if the government wants to avoid such payouts, it should put its fucking house in order.

As for the Sensible Sentencing Trust's position that "it was absurd for the inmates to claim they had been psychologically tortured by the strict solitary confinement after the way they had treated their victims", it is simply wrong. Inhumane and degrading treatment in prison is wrong. So is murder. Being a murderer does not remove your fundamental human rights, and it does not mean that you can be victimised at will because crimes against you "don't count". The Sensible Sentencing Trust and Phil Goff would obviously disagree, but by doing so they are not standing for justice - they are standing for the Hobbesean war of all against all.