Buzz from the Beehive
The government continued beating the law-and-order drum over the past 24 hours, during a week in which it introduced a Bill to restore the Three Strikes sentencing law, announced the deployment of more Police on the beat in Auckland’s Central Business District, and introduced action to tackle youth crime in the form of a new declaration for young offenders to ensure they face tougher consequences and are better supported to turn their lives around.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith yesterday announced a bundle of measures which he contends will toughen sentences for criminals.
The reforms will strengthen the criminal justice system by:
- Capping the sentence discounts that judges can apply at 40 per cent when considering mitigating factors unless it would result in manifestly unjust sentencing outcomes.
- Preventing repeat discounts for youth and remorse. Lenient sentences are failing to deter offenders who continue to rely on their youth or expressions of remorse without making serious efforts to reform their behaviour.
- Responding to serious retail crime by introducing a new aggravating factor to address offences against sole charge workers and those whose home and business are interconnected, as committed to in the National-Act coalition agreement.
- Encouraging the use of cumulative sentencing for offences committed while on bail, in custody, or on parole to denounce behaviour that indicates a disregard for the criminal justice system, as committed to in the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement.
- Implementing a sliding scale for early guilty pleas with a maximum sentence discount of 25 per cent, reducing to a maximum of 5 per cent for a guilty plea entered during the trial. This will prevent undue discounts for late-stage guilty pleas and avoid unnecessary trials that are costly and stressful for victims.
- Amending the principles of sentencing to include requirement to take into account any information provided to the court about victims’ interests, committed to in both coalition agreements.
Goldsmith today drew attention to new crime data which he brandished to underpin the need for law and order action.
The latest New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey data show New Zealanders experienced 1.88 million incidents of crime between November 2022 and October 2023.
The also showed 185,000 New Zealanders experienced 449,000 incidents of violent crime, including physical and sexual assault, and robbery.
“Sadly, the survey found more New Zealanders felt unsafe than the year prior, even if they weren’t a victim of a crime.”
The government has set two targets – 20,000 fewer victims of violent crime by 2029, alongside a 15 per cent drop in serious repeat youth offending.
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Point of Order 