SO TAKE THE COAT JUST IN CASE. FINALLY, HAMILTON COUPLE MARTY AND BARB CAMILLERI CAPTURED THE FULL SOLAR ECLIPSE FROM PORT DOUGLAS, QUEENSLAND TODAY. TUCKING INTO SOME MORTON BAY BUGS RIGHT NOW NOT WHAT YOU FIND IN YOUR COMPOST GOOGLE THEM AND THAT'S ONE NEWS FOR WEDNESDAY NOW HERE'S CLOSE UP. Tonight on Close Up ` is making prisons family friendly the solution to preventing more crime? It was the stuff of science fiction comics, but could the driverless car work here? If you've got a computer that's controlling that, we might be able to re-evaluate safety standards. And why take a photo? Bring on the world's best live-event artist. Due to the live nature of Close Up, captions for some items may be incomplete. ONE News captions by Finn Scott-Kelly and Richard Edmunds. Close Up captions by Angela Alice and Hugo Snell. When people get banged up in jail, it's because they've done something wrong and they need to repay their debt to society. For many prisoners, being shut off from the outside world also means being shut out from their family's lives. 'Good job,' some might say. 'They should have thought of that before they committed the crime.' But the government's worried at the long-term effect prison life has on families and is looking to the UK example of family-friendly lock-ups. We'll debate the merits shortly, but first here's Jehan Casinader. Prisoners ` when they're put behind bars, they lose many of their rights. But should that include the right to a relationship with their kids? Last week Corrections Minister Anne Tolley headed to England to see a very different method of tough love. At Doncaster Prison dads are allowed to spend time with their kids, and they're even taught how to be good parents. Hopefully you are reducing reoffending; you are teaching them family values. The prison offers classes in film-making and helps inmates develop their job prospects. This jail is privately run by Serco, the same company that manages Mt Eden prison. Serco's been under fire for failing to meet its targets in NZ. But in the UK, Serco's radical programmes are reducing violence and drugs in the cells. This is Serco's PR video. So what about our prison system? ARCHIVE: Criminals are sent to prison by the thousands. Now they're bursting at the seams. Our imprisonment rate is one of the highest in the developed world. Laws have been toughened up, allowing longer sentences, and that means keeping more people behind bars. ARCHIVE: A new men's prison will open on this Waikato land next year, and its 650 beds can't come soon enough. But almost all inmates will, at some point, be released, returned to their families, returned to our neighbourhoods. While in Opposition, the National Party took a tough line on prisoners and the conditions they live in. How is it that the people who should be paying for the crimes they have committed are being allowed to live in a luxurious environment where they do have underfloor heating? But now perhaps a change of heart. Anne Tolley says she's open to more progressive prison policies. We want to get a culture change in Corrections. Community groups are already doing some of that work. This year Close Up has shown you the Howard League and its efforts to teach adult prisoners how to read. READS: When the wind blew so wildly, it blew off the hat. We've also looked at Prison Fellowship. They're mentoring some of the 20,000 K kids who have a parent behind bars. Sometimes he's out in the open, but sometimes he's behind glass, so... If programmes like this are shown to reduce reoffending, our jails may end up looking less like this... and more like this. Joining me now in the Auckland studio is Ruth Money from the Sensible Sentencing Trust and from the Howard League for Penal Reform, Mike Williams. YOU'D BE IN FAVOUR OF THIS, MIKE? I THINK IT'S ONE OF THE THINGS THAT REDUCES REOFFENDING. IT'S A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. IT REDUCES RE-OFFENDING. OUR ENCARCERATION RATE IS SO HIGH BECAUSE OUR PRISONERS ARE SEPARATED FROM THEIR FAMILIES. OUR IF YOU WANT TO KEEP RE-OFFENDING DOWN, KEEP PRISONERS BONDED WITH THEIR FAMILY. WE HAVEN'T SEEN CONVINCING RESULTS WORLDWIDE. DO WE WANT CHILDREN IN A PRISON ENVIRONMENT? WHY SHOULD THE CHILDREN BE INTRODUCED TO THE PRISON? HAVEN'T THEY HAD CHANCES AT REHABILITATION BEFORE THAT. MIKE, SOME PEOPLE WILL THINK THAT THESE GUYS HAVE DONE WRONG AND NEED A HARSH LESSON. RUTH'S ARGUMENT, IF YOU TAKE THAT IT ITS CONCLUSION, THE KIDS ARE GUILTY. THE KIDS AREN'T GUILTY. THEY SHOULDN'T BE DEPRRIVED OF A PARENT. GET THEM LITERATE, GET THEM A JOB AND KEEP THEM BONDED TO THEIR FAMILY AND THEY WON'T COME BACK. IT'S A NO-BRAINER TO SOLVE THE ISSUE. HOW DO YOU THINK THE VICTIM FEELS IF THE OFFENDER IS GETTING DADDY DAYCARE? BUT THAT PERSON DOESN'T COME OUT AND ASSAULT ANOTHER PERSON. THE DADDY DAY CARE WORKS. WE DON'T WANT THE CHILDREN NORMALISED IN A PRISON ENVIRONMENT. IF IT COULD BE SHOWN TO YOU THAT IT WORKS, THEN YOU WOULD BE IN FAVOUR? ABSOLUTELY. THERE'S PLENTY OF EVIDENCE, AND IT STANDS TO REASON. UNDER SERCO, THERE ARE VISITS HAPPENING ALREADY. CORRECTIONS ARE EXPERIMENTING WITH SKYPE LINKS. WHAT DO WE MEAN BY 'FAMILY FRIENDLY'? IT'S PROVIDING FACILITIES FOR KIDS TO VISIT IN JAIL? IT MEANS YOU'RE ABLE TO GO IN WITH YOUR KIDS AND NOT HAVE A GLASS PANEL BETWEEN THEM. THAT'S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW AND IT' BENEFICIAL. IT'S NOT OK FOR KIDS TO BE BROUGHT UP IN PRISON. ISN'T THERE A DANGER THAT IF THE KIDS DON'T SEE THEIR PARENTS, THEY TURN THEM INTO HEROES. MIGHTN'T REALITY BE GOOD FOR THEM? OTHER RESEARCH FROM THE UK AND THE US SAYS THAT ENCARCERATION IS CALLED KINSHIP AND NORMALISES IT FOR THE KIDS. HAVE YOU BEEN TO A PRISON WITH THESE POLICIES? NO. RUTH'S ARGUMENT ` THE PREVIOUS MINISTER ALLOWED MOTHERS TO HAVE BABIES UP TO TWO YEARS IN JAIL. WOULD YOU GO BACK TO THE CHUCK THEM OUT AT NINE MONTHS WHEN THEY POP OUT? CRIME IS A CHOICE. YOU'RE ARGUING NOT TO TRY ANYTHING THAT WILL STOP THEM COMING BACK. IS THIS ABOUT PROGRESSIVE POLICIES OR ARE THEY LOOKING FOR HOW TO CUT NUMBERS? IT'S BOTH. A GUY WHO'S BONDED WITH HIS FAMILY, HE'S LESS LIKE TO RE-OFFEND. IF YOU READ PAULA BENNETT'S PAPER ON ABUSE, IT'S DUE TO THE BOND BEING BROKEN BETWEEN PARENTS AND KIDS. WE NEED PROOF THAT THE CHILDREN AREN'T AFFECTED. IF THE REOFFENDING COME DOWN, THEN GREAT. ABSOLUTELY. SHE'S ON MY SIDE! THANK YOU BOTH FOR JOINING US. What do you think? Are family friendly prisons the way to go? To make your point, there's the website of course, and you can email us at closeup@tvnz.co.nz And we're on Facebook too. And you can comment on Twitter. It's @closeuptvnz Coming up ` how being asleep at the wheel could be the new way to drive. How long before we're in a passenger seat being driven by a machine? I would say within 10 years. And let's face it ` everyone's got a camera. How about an artist to capture that live event? We've seen all these trials in the States with driverless cars. You know, you just hop in the car and sensors or computers or all that fancy stuff does the rest. It's the future apparently ` not for some of us, I'd hasten to add. The driving experience is why we have cars. But you know it's going to come. The States, perhaps. But here? Is it likely? Matt Chisholm got behind the wheel. Then again, for this story he shouldn't need to. Wouldn't it be wonderful? Instead of driving your car, having your car drive you. Your morning commute could be a far more relaxing experience. Well, it's no longer the stuff of far-fetched sci-fi movies. Driverless cars are now legit. It's road legal to operate autonomous vehicles in certain states in the US. And could be up for grabs sometime soon. I would say within 10 years. So the old 'look, Ma ` no hands' or the drunk driver's terribly inappropriate 'no worries, the car knows the way home' is no longer a matter of if but when. What do you think the benefits would be? I think there's a lot in safety of people, with all the casualties and injuries on the road. A lot of accidents and things are often caused by human error somewhere along the way, so if you've got a computer that's controlling that, we might be able to re-evaluate safety standards. There is efficiency of the road so that vehicles could drive faster more closely packed. It's not dependent on the state of the driver. You could be driven to work by your computer-controlled car. Like you can on a bus or a train. There's a revolution (!) Forget about expensive parking. You can send your wagon home after you've reached the office. And then when you're ready, maybe use your smartphone, say, 'I'm ready,' click a button, it comes to pick you up and you're off, and then you join the queue of other autonomous vehicles. And maybe they'll give us pedestrians a chance to take back the streets by simply walking in front of them, because they'll surely be programmed to stop. (LAUGHS) Yep, some of us aren't so keen on cars, driverless or not. Here's urban design writer Patrick Reynolds. They almost certainly will, first of all, lead to a whole lot of unemployed taxi drivers. Instead you can have a computer, and we all know how wonderful they are (!) (LAUGHS) So you'll have Google Maps driving you around and taking you to Tauranga when you're meant to go to Hamilton. If our driverless cars stopped functioning, we may not have the same understanding of how the car works, so we wouldn't have an idea about how to fix it. Wouldn't we just do what we normally do in the office ` turn the computer off, turn the computer on? Quite possibly, yeah. We'd probably sit back and wait for one of the experts to come along and fix it for us. If one vehicle shuts down, will our city be gridlocked by these computer-run cars that don't know what to do next? I don't think so. I think that would be one of the early questions they would answer when developing the system. It's hardly surprising the US military are in to this boots and all. They don't want to lose lives in the battlefield, so they'll do anything to push the drones. More surprising, however, is that Google ` the outfit that's brought us Street View ` is also throwing millions at it. They're licensing their technology. They want it in the cars in the next eight years. Some of this autonomous technology is already being used in high-end cars. Things like autonomous cruise control so that it can stay behind the vehicle in front. But putting it all together to deal with the uncertainty on our roads is quite a challenge. There are the sensors that have to perceive the environment to know where the other vehicles are, how far away they are, where a car is in the world using such things as GPS and also other items in the environment like pedestrians. And there's also the intelligence ` the software that has to interpret all of this information, and it has to filter out the meaningful information like a human does in a split second. And when the car manufacturers eventually nail it ` and they will ` will we humans, we Ks who love to drive want to give up the steering wheel? For many other people, you know, driving itself is actually a pleasurable experience. For them, it's not just about getting to the destination. It's actually how you get there. So I think for those people, driverless cars might not be quite such a positive thing. I think because people like autonomous things. I think the younger generation are growing up with it, and they'll be upset if other things weren't happening as quickly, so I think autonomous vehicles is just one of those things. Do you think people will sit around in years to come and go, 'Jeez, can't believe people used to drive their own cars'? Yeah, yeah, I think so. That will probably` My vision of the future would be where everything` all vehicles are autonomous, etc, and to drive like you traditionally would, you'd be going on a race track or something. It would be a closed scenario. Up next ` he's world renowned for capturing live events, but no short cuts for this Peter Williams. Good job. OK, can I have the rest of the day off? We live in the age of the photograph ` the point and shoot, the instant capturing of whatever action we're looking at that takes moments to share. So you'd think that a person who made his living painting the action might not just be yesterday's man, he'd be last century's. Well, Matt McLean caught up with a renowned K artist who's spent the last 40 years painting all sorts of live action and is still in high demand. I'm painting to keep body and soul together. That's why I'm so thin. They see me at the Derby or whatever, and they think, 'Well, he has to be good to be at the Derby,' And I don't let them know I'm an unemployed sheep herder from Ruatoria. (CHUCKLES) Behind the laughs, you're watching one of NZ's most successful artists. Now, the very first thing I do is to indicate the horizon. Casual stroke after casual stroke, turning life into art. Well, the technique ` when I find out, I'll let you know. (LAUGHS) But I just do what I've always done. I don't paint what I see so much as use what's there to make something that's a little bit poetic, perhaps. This one here ` there were some gum trees on the middle road near Havelock. And you'd find it really hard to find, because I've eliminated the trees I didn't need. And this is what I mean about being poetic. But rather than prose, this poetry is found on a canvas. It tends to make you paint quickly, which I think is the essence. Because we all hope that the next paint stroke will make the difference, and it never, ever does. And it ends up like a story where you never get the punchline. We met Peter Williams on his property east of Havelock North. HORN BEEPS Old Model-T Fords are his passion, but it's painting that's his lifeblood, and in particular, painting from life. I really honestly believe that one absorbs more painting from life, because there is such an urgency. It's only going to be there for a short time. And my head is literally chock-a-block with people and horses trying to get out. But the east coast of NZ is a far cry from the North American racing tracks... And they're off in the Kentucky Derby! ...that have become Peter's second home. Most of what I paint is on the horse farms, at the training centres, at the sales, and in the what here is called the bird cage but in America is called the paddock. That's where all the colour and the pageantry is. It's fabulous. For more than three decades now, Peter has been the resident artist at tracks like the famous Churchill Downs ` home of the Kentucky Derby. This one here was on the back side at Churchill Downs. And of course all of this is happening right in front of you. Oh, yes. So you're having to memorise what you're seeing, right? Well, no, I'm just getting ideas from what I see. No, all those horses are in my head. And the rest is a bit of poetic licence? I suppose so. Yes. He's also had some very famous subjects to paint. They were famous before I painted them. (CHUCKLES) The Queen was invited to Kentucky to open the new grandstand at Keenland. The president of the racetrack marched me over to a big tree, and he said 'Now, I want you to paint the Queen and I as we walk towards you.' And I was going, 'Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full.' And I did it. And it worked, luckily. So we wanted to see him in action. An hour, he said, was all he needed. This doesn't look like it yet, but this is going to be Bare Island. And then I'm going to have a cameraman. Here he is here. MUMFORD & SONS' 'I WILL WAIT' And 45 minutes later,... (GROANS) ...he's done. From this... to this. So, Peter, this is the finished product? Well, it's not worth a cracker till it's got my name on it. And this? Is this a bit of artistic licence, is it? Hell, no. Didn't you see her? An imagination that has taken Peter Williams and his paintbrush around the world. And he says there's no chance of him slowing down ` sort of. Good job. OK, can I have the rest of the day off? You can. You've earned your keep. All right. Peter Williams is back here for a charity exhibition of his work on at the Hastings Community Arts Centre until next Friday. Tomorrow night ` gay retirement homes. As the first generation of out and proud gay NZers reach retirement, are the traditional options an uncomfortable fit? REPORTER: There are 150,000 NZ men and women who are gay. They were in the closet. They were not disclosing their relationships. There are twice as many gays in NZ as there are club-rugby players. They'll be asking questions ` 'Where are your grandchildren?' We just don't want to have to go through all of that again. The village will be an island ` a lavender island somewhere. I want to live a healthy and good lifestyle. Once they have to go back to a residential care situation, they're frightened. They're really really frightened. Feedback time, and our family friendly prisons story didn't get a friendly reaction. Most of you who wrote in are dead set against the idea. Lee Frederick says... Allen Anderson says... That's tomorrow night, and that's NZ Close Up. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright TVNZ Access Services 2012