User:Babakathy/coispace

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Analysis of edits by Offender9000 to Department of Corrections (New Zealand)

Introduction

I have tried to make a review of 425 accumulated revisions by 9 users (mostly Offender9000). The old version is the last edit before Offender9000 started editting. The newer version is the last edit by Offender9000 before Stuartyeates or SimonLyall started editting. I think. I hope that gives me an overview of the material contributed by Offender9000 which is under discussion.

Offender9000 introduced a reference to the book Flying Blind in this edit and identified himself as the author of the work cited in this edit. To me that is self-outing, surely: once individuals have identified themselves, such information can be used for discussions of conflict of interest in appropriate forums. This view is confirmed by the admin who looked into the outing, Beeblebrox here. Following the link inserted by Offender9000 in this edit, the author of Flying Blind is Roger Brooking, which is pertinent to analysis of the edits. However, throughout this analysis (except in the Conclusion), I have referred to Flying Blind as BOOK and Roger Brooking as the author of BOOK.

Text removed

The text removed is probably sourced from an official department site or circular. It is mostly factual but also includes POV statements like "They provide secure, safe and humane containment of prisoners while also aiming to reduce re-offending".

Sections added

Leadership controversies

• Tone: one-sided, no government/department voices or responses to criticism cited.
• Sources: 10 from Newspapers (mainly NZ Herald), the auditor-general's report, 2 online news aticles (Fairfax NZ stuff.co.nz), 2 opposition press releases.

Growth of Corrections Department

• Tone: First paragraph is broadly factual, second is opinionated, no voices supporting growth of prisons, and it has a clear synthesis: the source cited for the second sentence makes no reference to the spending referred on prisons to in the first sentence:

  In addition to the more than $1 billion spent building these new prisons, the Department's operating budget is also over $1 billion a year. These costs impose a significant burden on the taxpayer at a time when New Zealand is facing the biggest budget deficit in its history.

• Sources: 9 from Newspapers (mainly NZ Herald), one online news/blog (not clear to me: infonews.co.nz)- and one wikipedia article as ref!

Penal populism in New Zealand

• Tone: one-sided, no voices supporting being "tough on crime" are cited. There is also Synthesis again:

Professor John Pratt of Victoria University, Wellington says the increase in the prison population in New Zealand has been driven by penal populism - a process whereby the major political parties compete with each other to be 'tough on crime'. Underlying this process is the sensational media coverage of crime which contributes to inaccurate perceptions about the prevalence of violence in society and distorts perceptions of public safety.

The below sentence is clearly POV with the claim made in the first part of the sentence not supported by the citations (they show media attention is there but not what it leads to) and the second part of the sentence uses "so-called" in a POV manner.

Much of the 'lock em up' mentality in New Zealand stems from years of media attention given to Garth McVicar of the so-called Sensible Sentencing Trust.

• Sources: 1 department report (for stats), 1 journal article, 3 from International Centre for Prison Studies, 1 broadcasting authority judgement, 1 post on infonews.co.nz and one post on tvnz.co.nz
• COI? The post on infonews.co.nz is about BOOK (some confusion about Gordon Brown or Russel Brown?), in the broadcasting authority judgement the complainant is the author of BOOK, and one post on tvnz.co.nz is by the author of BOOK.

The growing cost of crime

• Tone: generally factual, though "Instead of being mandated into treatment, offenders are often sent to prison" seems POV to me and is unsupported by citation.
• Sources: department report (for stats), , several NZ law commission, 3 newspaper, 2 BOOK

Corrections' Responsibilities

Discussion of legal responsibilities is sourced entirely to BOOK or else original research

Criticisms and Concerns

This is an extremely long section, longer than most of the rest of the article actually. There are policy issues with criticism sections: WP:CRIT, WP:STRUCTURE.

• Tone: The tone is wholelly critical with no real voice given to response on th cricisms reported.

In the section Criticisms of the Probation Service the first and third paragraphs are essentially original research, with the only citation being for a Department statement (citation is from BOOK not the actual statement). The paragraph starting "All three investigations also failed to mention" is also original research, except the last sentence with cites BOOK.

There are editorialising statements such as

"enables the Department to avoid paying for professional reintegration services and avoid taking any responsibility for what happens to prisoners in the care of these volunteers"

"None of the advice ever offered to the Minister since the Corrections Department was established has led to a reduction in New Zealand's rate of imprisonment or rate of recidivism. On the contrary, the number of New Zealanders in prison has continued to grow. As a result, five new prisons have been built in the last ten years and in 2011, Corrections proposed the building of yet another prison at Wiri"

There are quite a few uncited statements such as

"For the majority of prisoners who don't have a job organised while still in prison, having a prison record often makes it very difficult to find one once they're released",

"There are no halfway houses in the North Island and none for women funded by Corrections anywhere in the country",

"New Zealand’s two halfway houses have a total of 28 beds" and

"Only one of the ten recommendations in the document was adopted"

• Sources:

There are 8 reports from govt departments (mainly for stats), 3 policy statements from government departments, 1 report from Auditor general, 1 from National Health Committee, 2 from Ombudsman, 5 statements from legal cases or EPA hearings, 3 politicians statements, 18 newspaper articles, 3 online news articles, 1 google search(!), 10 from BOOK, 9 infonews posts all of which are by the author of BOOK, and 1 press item with a judge referring to BOOK

Conclusion

Reading this and sources, I have to say I found that the argument made by the edits is cogent and fairly convincing. The problem is "argument" - the edits taken together read as a one-sided argument (essentially political, though not party-political). The contribution made is extremely POV, and not done in the way of balancing an existing POV but to push a POV. Reading it, it is very easy for me as reader to be sympathetic with the POV advanced - but that is not enyclopedic.

Sourcing is reasonable - mostly reliable news sources (though not all) but very on sided. I find it significant that the view of the Sensible Sentencing Trust or Garth McVicar are never cited in these edits on any of the controversies or disagreements - although the existence of such views are referred to often in sources cited when I read them.

The way Flying Blind is treated is significant. It is the only work cited several times and it is treated uncriticially by the user as a reliable source. The author, Roger Brooking, is referred to in the edits as "a critic of the department's" and posts to infonews.co.nz by Roger Brooking are also common sources, especially for criticism. Flying Blind is also linked as an external link as well in addition to being a frequent reference. It has been pointed out on talk that since Roger Brooking's company published Flying Blind, it is considered self-published, which raises issues of reliability, but I have not attempted to unpack these.

Roger Brooking has a clear agenda in reforming the NZ prison system and in opposing penal populism, which he pursues in Flying Blind , online, in complaints to broadcasters and so on. From what I read in this article, it needs reform - but that is not the point. Roger Brooking is an alcohol and drug counsellor in Wellington and he provides comprehensive alcohol and drug assessments on offenders - the edits I have gone through argue that these assessments are far too few. Roger Brooking thus has some financial interests associated with the political agenda: as a provider of these assessments and to increase sales of Flying Blind .I am in no way suggesting the financial interests are behind the political agenda or are more important than the politial agenda to Roger Brooking, I am only saying they exist.

The edits advance the political agenda of Roger Brooking and do not contain opposing voices.

If Offender9000 is the author of Flying Blind (as per his self-outing discussed in my introduction), there is a clear COI with both the political agenda advanced off-wiki and the financial interests. This is a clear COI.

In summary, while I have a lot of sympathy for the positions advocated by Offender9000 in his edits, the edits are very POV and the COI is clear and inappropriate.

Analysis of edits by Stuartyeates to Department of Corrections (New Zealand)

I have tried to make a review of the edits by Stuartyeates. I have excluded edits prior to the 425 accumulated revisions by 9 users (mostly Offender9000) analysed above.

1. restoring removed content, format
2. format
3. removed much of the criticism material referred to as trim per wp:coatrack
4. edit war on edits previously described herein

• Removal of text is justified as text violates WP:NPOV and WP:COI (see analysis of Offender9000's edits above).
• Text restored by user has one POV statement but is otherwise factual (see Text removed sub-section of my analysis of Offender9000's edits above).
• Additions are non-controversial
• Editing is therefore not to advance an outisde interest, no COI
• It is also fairly obvious from links on the user's userpage who they do and don't work for.

Analysis of edits by SimonLyall to Department of Corrections (New Zealand)

I have tried to make a review of the edits by SimonLyall. I have excluded edits prior to the 425 accumulated revisions by 9 users (mostly Offender9000) analysed above.

1. revert of all material from Offender9000, update job-holder info
2. revert
3. revert
4. format
5. removed Flying Blind from external links
6. rewording, no change of sense
7. edit war on edits previously described herein

• Removal of text is justified as text removed violates WP:NPOV and WP:COI (see analysis of Offender9000's edits above).
• Additions are non-controversial
• Editing is therefore not to advance an outisde interest, no COI
• It is also fairly obvious from links on the user's userpage who they do and don't work for.

Comment

If the material added by Offender9000 is removed on the basis of the COI and POV, the earlier version has issues of POV (only one statement I think) and WP:COPYVIO that need addressing, as posted by Offender 9000 here.

Response

I have just today seen that Offender9000 posted a series of comments into this. Since it's not a talk page, it made for rather confusing reading. I have restored my original analysis and inserted Offender9000's posts below. Babakathy (talk) 11:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

• There were two major problems with original text which was removed. First, there were virtually no footnotes or references. Second, the text was often not accurate - it was frequently inaccurate including the statement above that the Department "provides secure, safe and humane containment prisoners." Given the growing number of assaults on prison staff and other prisoners which occur on a daily basis; given that the suicide rate in New Zealand prisons is 11 times higher than in the community, this statement is simply not true." One could well argue that the original article was so POV it should have been deleted. Offender9000 (talk) 21:35, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Your claim that no government voices are cited in response to criticism is nonsense. If you read the section more closely you will see that, in fact, it is government officials who are doing the criticising. One comment comes from Simon Power, justice spokesperson for the Opposition National party at the time; the second is from Judith Collins, the Minister of Corrections, who criticises her own chief executive, Barry Matthews; the third criticism is from the Auditor General which is a statutory government department whose function is to investigate the performance of other government departments. Offender9000 (talk) 21:46, 29 June 2012 (UTC) There are only three sentences in the second paragraph. One is: "As at December 2011, New Zealand had 20 prisons and the Department employed over 8,000 staff." The second is: "The Department's operating budget is over $1 billion a year." These are entirely factual and references are provided. The third sentence is a statement by the Deputy Prime Minister, Bill English, which might be considered his opinion, but in fact is based on information made available to him in his role as Minister of Finance. The third paragraph contains factual information about the building of the new prison at Wiri and comments by politicians about the growth the prison system - including a comment by Corrections Minister Anne Tolley. In other words, the entire section on the growth of the prison system contains factual information with comments by government ministers. As such, it is both accurate, informative and balanced in its approach. Offender9000 (talk) 22:04, 29 June 2012 (UTC) There is no section on penal populism in New Zealand. This information was deleted months ago. Offender9000 (talk) 22:09, 29 June 2012 (UTC) There is no section on the growing cost of crime. This section was deleted months ago. Offender9000 (talk) 22:12, 29 June 2012 (UTC) * The legal responsibilities are laid down by government statute. Discussion of the legal responsibilities is sourced to numerous government publications such as the Corrections Departments own website and the MOH's 'Health in Justice' report. Media articles are also sourced. All information is sourced to previously published material and there is not a single reference to Flying Blind in this entire section. Offender9000 (talk) 22:23, 29 June 2012 (UTC) The issues you raise have all been addressed and this section no longer exists. Offender9000 (talk) 22:26, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

• Since Babakathy made this analysis, there have been so many changes to the article including the deletion of huge sections of material, his analysis is no longer valid. Unfortunately, other editors are still pursuing his line of thinking - apparently labouring under the illusion that no changes have been made to the article at all. Offender9000 (talk) 22:37, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
• In the course of this discussion, other editors have frequently argued that the views of Garth McVicar should be added - but then they have consistently failed to add them. If other editors think that the views of Garth McVicar would provide balance (which in my view is a fairly dubious assumption), it is their responsibility to provide that material. After all, Wikipedia is a collaborative effort. If other editors do not have the courage of their convictions to add material they think is relevant, I cannot be held responsible for that.
• Unfortunately, most of the other editors on the Corrections Department page have simply deleted material rather than adding material. That has been the source of conflict between SimonLyall and myself which eventually led to mediation. Offender9000 (talk) 22:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

* In the current version of the page (June 2012) there are over 80 footnotes. Only one of them relates to Flying Blind. It is totally nonsensical to claim that there are no opposing voices. There are references to dozens and dozens of voices - many of them government or reputable academics. In summary, your entire analysis, based on information being sourced to Flying Blind, is fundamentally inaccurate and increasingly irrelevant. Offender9000 (talk) 23:10, 29 June 2012 (UTC) * Before I started editing this article, it was nothing more than Corrections Department propaganda and hugely POV. There were almost no footnotes providing sources for any of the information. When I first added new material, I accept that it probably was overly critical. However, over the last six months, the article has evolved enormously. I have taken on board many of the points made by other editors and there has been ongoing verification and refinement of the information. In my view, the article is now a lot more informative than the original version. If further refinements are required, that's part of the process. But trying to argue that I have a conflict of interest is a huge distraction and does not help improve the quality of the information in the article. Offender9000 (talk) 23:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Only additional point is that my analysis was an attempt to establish whether an editor (Offender9000) was violating WP:COI, so it was based on a series of edits made, not current condition of the page. Babakathy (talk) 11:06, 10 July 2013 (UTC)