How a young man with violent tendencies had assaulted his partner, threatened to take out her family, was able to get his hands on a shotgun and wreak havoc with it in downtown Auckland, killing two, wounding eight.
Ultimately, it comes down to a call by an individual judge - and they will never be able to get it right 100% of the time. Christie Marceau was murdered by a young man out on bail after previously offending against her. Blessie Gotingco was run down, raped, and murdered by a man on electronic monitoring. And now we have Matu Reid who joins the roll call of shame.
I feel for the judges. I really do.
As Andrew Coster said this morning, there is no perfect equation that will allow judges to get it right 100 per cent of the time. And when they do get it wrong, the consequences are just awful. For some of us in our jobs, we can make mistakes and the consequences are not fatal or devastating.
I make mistakes in my job - and people get really annoyed and cross with me and I feel terrible about it but. At least I know I haven't got somebody's death on my hands. You're a doctor. You're a judge. You're a police officer. You get it wrong. There are major consequences - and there is no perfect solution.
Listening to Andrew Coster, at the end of the interview it sounded to me like he was constitutionally bound to not say a single solitary thing, but he was jolly well encouraging Mike to do so.
I don't think that ‘good on you’ sounded sarcastic or ironic.
I don't know what the Police Commissioner was thinking, but what it sounded like he was saying is I have my job to do, you keep doing yours.
You keep questioning. You keep asking. You keep pointing out that cutting prison numbers has not made New Zealand a safer place to be.
That when you allow discount, after discount, after discount, after discount and you're encouraged and exhorted to apply discount, after discount, after discount as a member of the judiciary then you run the risk of having what happened yesterday, happen again.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB where this article was sourced
I make mistakes in my job - and people get really annoyed and cross with me and I feel terrible about it but. At least I know I haven't got somebody's death on my hands. You're a doctor. You're a judge. You're a police officer. You get it wrong. There are major consequences - and there is no perfect solution.
Listening to Andrew Coster, at the end of the interview it sounded to me like he was constitutionally bound to not say a single solitary thing, but he was jolly well encouraging Mike to do so.
I don't think that ‘good on you’ sounded sarcastic or ironic.
I don't know what the Police Commissioner was thinking, but what it sounded like he was saying is I have my job to do, you keep doing yours.
You keep questioning. You keep asking. You keep pointing out that cutting prison numbers has not made New Zealand a safer place to be.
That when you allow discount, after discount, after discount, after discount and you're encouraged and exhorted to apply discount, after discount, after discount as a member of the judiciary then you run the risk of having what happened yesterday, happen again.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB where this article was sourced
2 comments:
In Finland offending is considered a fault of the state as well as the individual. All factors in the criminals past are investigated. This includes his home life, upbringing, schooling and other environments. Society is still protected from these individuals but an attempt to understand and correct faults in schooling and society are actually studied- not just considered for lessening the sentence..
These dreadful incidences are the product of a destroyed education system and broken society with no moral compass as well as a murderous individual from a malfunctional home.
Hi Erica
Finland has no maoris and very few countries have an equivalent population for comparison. Those that do, do not fare very well either. Large doses of haka to stir their once were warriors genes and constant exposure to the reject colonisation theme (which arises from Mutu/Jackson's "imagining decolonisation") shapes these embittered trigger happy nutters.
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