In The Art of War, Sun Tzu writes that "supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting" - that is to say, a masterful takeover is one where a party's resistance is dissipated with subtlety, quiet blow by quiet blow.
The Nanny State could easily be accused of taking a leaf out of old Sunny Tzu's tome - look at her war against smoking; it was a quiet one, carried out in small legislative blows, bit by bit - eating away at civil liberties in small enough bites to avoid a total civil mutiny. Of course, Nanny's supporters would say these bites were too small, Nanny's detractors would say she had no right to take a bite in the first place.
It wasn't long after the furor of the public smoking ban had settled down, that another amendment was announced. Earlier this year, Corrections Minister Judith Collins confirmed that the government were going to initiate a total smoking ban in prisons as of July 1st next year.
As is customary in suspected Nanny State activity, Collins and co. have asserted that the primary drive behind this ban has arisen out of concern for prison staff being exposed to secondary smoking. Our government cited similar bans in Australia that had been lauded as successful.
Of course, 'successful' here is subjective - a report by Australian drug and alcohol experts, clinicians and criminal experts had to concede that, while a ban was good for the health of the prisoners (duh...), cigarettes held a more valuable place in the complex social structure of prison life.
Tobacco smoking, the report noted, was "an integral part of prison life and an established part of the prison culture. Tobacco serves a range of functions in prison: as a surrogate currency, a means of social control, as a symbol of freedom in a group with few rights and privileges, a stress reliever and as a social lubricant."
See, right there, that's a whole can of worms. Is it perfectly acceptable to remove one final liberty from those who have had every other liberty taken from them as punishment for their crimes?
Or is this a step too far? Should even criminals be allowed their 'small liberties', which, beyond being small liberties, have been identified as a vital part of social currency within prisons?
Former inmates have lined up to have their say, muttering prophecies of almost apocalyptic proportions, claiming that cigarettes are such an ingrained part of the inmate's world that they will just go to greater lengths to obtain them, resulting in an increase in deception, prisoner unrest; hell, one of them reckons "There's going to be more murders inside than out there, I'm telling you now"
The unions representing prisoners fear the worst too - Corrections Association president Beven Hanlon says that most prisoners use tobacco as a way to ease off the drugs they were on before their incarceration
"I'd be surprised if [inmates] don't take some collective action. It's not unusual for prison systems to cut back on everything and finally have a riot. There's the double bunking, the reduced unlock hours and visit times and now we're taking smoking off them."
There's a party you want to miss.
I mean, either way you cut it, all you nicotine-loving small time crims out there better get busy getting locked up, because it won't be long before you're eating cold turkey with your Nanny State cellmate.
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