the national problem with crime

Remember the days of Ullisyses club rides,combined gangs/members of the public etc money raised went to "Starship"etc and greatfully recieved

some follow up on the "Granny Bashing", it seems her victim's statement was heavily censored in court
www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/03/censoring_the_victim.html

David Farrar makes some good points.

www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/04/a_weak_three_strikes_law.html

APRIL 23, 2024 7:00AM BY DAVID FARRAR
A weak Three Strikes law
Nicole McKee announced:

The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today.

The return is welcome in principle, but what is being proposed is actually pretty weak and even ineffective.

Cover the same 40 serious violent and sexual offences as the former legislation, with the addition of the new strangulation and suffocation offence;

They seem suitable offences to include, so that change is good.

Introduce a new requirement that the Three Strikes law will only apply to sentences above 24 months;

This will gut the law, and result in around 75% of violent and sexual offenders not getting strike offences. It will also incentivise judges to always do sentences of below 24 months where possible top avoid a strike.

There is an arguable case that the third strike (the one that gets you the maximum sentence without parole) should require a level of offending that is significant enough for a custodial sentence. But to apply that criteria to the first and second strikes will massively reduce the number of strikes, and hence the deterrent effect desired. Remember the first strike gets no extra penalty – it is the warning about future offending.

Extend the use of the “manifestly unjust” exception to allow some judicial discretion to avoid very harsh outcomes and address outlier cases;

This is going the wrong direction. Judges have already used the manifestly unjust provisions to undermine the law and avoid third strike sentences in the majority of third strike cases. If anything the judicial discretion should be restrained further by stating that use of manifestly unjust should be very very rare.

Also the new criteria to not have strikes for sentences of under two years, would remove the need for greater judicial discretion. So the combination will make the law pretty ineffectual.

Provide a limited benefit for guilty pleas to avoid re-traumatisation of victims, and to improve court delays; and

It is sensible to have this incentive, so a say 20% discount for guilty pleas would mean the sentence for a third strike rape would still be 16 years which would be significant.

See that people who commit murder at second or third strike receive an appropriately lengthy non-parole period.

Well the old law had life without parole, so this will reduce it – but we don’t know by how much.

The Minister intends to bring a draft bill and paper to Cabinet by the end of June, and to introduce the bill to the House soon after that.

The worst change hasn’t been mentioned at all. I understand the new Three Strikes law will reset all the serious violent and sexual offenders who got strikes under the old regime back to zero. This will send out an awful message, and also mean that it will take ages for any deterrent effect to take effect as everyone will be starting at zero again.

I would encourage everyone to engage with the legislative process to demand an effective Three Strikes law, not a weak one.

will give it a play tomorrow

those against the 3 strikes law often say "it hasn't worked in california", "it's too harsh"

but when you hear this

realize our 3 strikes law is far, far softer

California’s three-strikes law under Penal Code 667 PC imposes a prison sentence of 25 years to life on defendants convicted of their third violent felony or serious felony.

nz judges probably wouldn't give a gang member 25 years in jail after a 3rd murder charge! 

other than preventative detention i'm not sure nz even has a literal 25 years in jail to life

afaik this gov.'s new version

"If the offender was then convicted of a third qualifying offence the court was required to impose the maximum applicable penalty without parole, unless the court considered it would have been manifestly unjust to do so."

so let's say a male on their 2nd offence was convicted of assaulting a female, 

'male assaults female'

the judge would have to sentence them to the maximum permissible term of imprisonment for this crime, without the chance of parole

2 years

f$%^en laughable compared to california's 25 years

and if this was just a 'knock' that was over-played

an nz judge doesn't have to sentence 2 years as it could be seen as 'manifestly unjust'

gov.'s job is protect its citizens and allow them to prosper and thrive under equal opportunity conditions

Just got this, my boys sister, in Auckland city.

"xxxxx has been a victim of theft 3 times now in the last 2 weeks...
The last one was really bad. Broad daylight broke into her apartment while she was home, two men in balaclavas. Took her phone, wallet, laptop, scooter....Fortunately didn't hurt xxxxx
She got $1500 taken off a credit card last week. 1st Phone stolen out of her bag at work. Phone/card stolen while shopping (but they dumped the phone as it was the old one)."

But don't worry, the rainbow crossing is safe, Chloe must be so proud of the city and it's culture.

Kid loved living in Auckland. When the University went pretty woke, she finished off overseas. Got a cool job doing stuff she loves, how do you cope with this shit though.

Mate has an apartment upper end of Hobson St near Cook St. Housing NZ have taken on some of the apartments in his building, says the state of the lifts is disgusting with the piss and drug remnants.