Kerre Woodham: There has to be consequences for crime

I thought we'd have a look at the plans to amend New Zealand sentencing laws.

National, ACT, and New Zealand First campaigned on the law-and-order ticket. Tougher sentences, consequences for serial youth offenders, safer communities. It is their thing, all of their parties, this is what they do. Let's get tough on crime whenever there's an election campaign. But given that there had been an increase in crime during the last six years, crime had been steadily going down and then it did not. There was a 70% increase in gang membership, violent crime was up by a third, 100% increase in retail crime, and I would venture to suggest even more than that, just people weren't reporting it.

A majority of people were feeling less safe on the streets, in their businesses, in their homes. It was a safe bet that voters would respond to a let's get tough on crime stance and now the coalition government is delivering on its campaign promises. They will cap sentence discounts that judges can apply to 40% of the maximum unless it results in manifestly unjust sentencing outcomes. Prevent repeat discounts for youth and remorse. That's good. Introduce a new aggravating factor to address offences against sole charge workers and those whose home and businesses are interconnected (that would be the dairy owners). Encouraging the use of cumulative sentencing for offences committed while on bail, in custody or on parole, so rather than it being three sentences of six years and they're all served concurrently, it would be 18 years, not three lots of six.

At the moment a lot of concurrent is done. A maximum sentence discount of 25% for early guilty pleas, reducing to 5% if a guilty plea is entered once the trials begun. And adding a requirement for judges to take information about the victim's interests into account. Convener of the Law Society's Criminal Committee, Chris Macklin, sounded a note of caution on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning.

“Oh well look, it's early days. You say these things are coming and of course they are, they do still need to go through Select Committee. The signal is clear that tougher sentences are coming, whether that achieves exactly what people want will be the acid test, and that will be reducing people's experience of crime. There's a worry that some areas of offending might be less accurately reported if tougher sentences appeared. I think there's a concern about undermining restorative and rehabilitative purposes of sentencing. And the profession probably needs to highlight as well to the extent it can, it's by no means clear the tougher things to do to effectively some of the crimes we're talking about.”

I don't know about you. But I am not supportive of these raft of measures because I think it will bring down crime. That will have to happen in other areas. More support for at risk families, getting kids back into school and actually teaching them something to give them more options, that sort of thing. Alcohol and drug rehabilitation. Mr Macklin, I am not naïve. I know criminals won't suddenly stop and go, well best not beat up that pensioner because I'm going to spend longer in jail. I support the tougher sentences because I am sick and tired of the hurt perpetuated by people who do it time and time, and crime and crime again. I want to see them punished for that.

There's a million cases we can point to but remember the case of the teen Mongrel Mob member who broke into the home of a pregnant woman and indecently assaulted her and the bed she was sharing with her child? He was sentenced for breaking into a home and then sexually assaulting a pregnant woman. He was sentenced to 12 months home detention. And as Stevie Taunoa, 19, thanked the judge and walked from the dock and to the police cells, he yelled, “cracked it”. So, the discount he got for his youth and remorse doesn't seem to be very genuine, does it? I don't want to see gangsters gloating about how they've gamed the system. I don't want to see offenders be allowed to use their youth or their dreadful backgrounds to get lesser sentences time after time, crime after crime. When the person responsible for attacking an 85-year-old woman on a walker as she walked up the side of her house - when they are caught, I don't want to hear about how sorry they are. I want to see someone responsible for an 85-year-old woman who's now got a broken nose, facial bruising, a broken wrist and bruising to her fingers, who has been stalked as she has made her way home from withdrawing money from the ASB Bank, I want to see them punished. We can get to the rehabilitation and yes, I'm very sorry and gosh, I had a terrible background later. But as the police said, it was a gutless and cowardly attack. So let's see a sentence that reflects that. Not oh, that poor offender, look at where they've come from. Look at what has forced them to attack a frail old woman on a bloody walker, in her home.

So, Mr. Macklin, you might think that we're all a bit stupid and maybe there are some people who think all with these harsher sentences by crikey, we'll see those criminals quaking in their boots and not offending. They will continue to offend, of that, I am certain. It's not going to mean an end to crime. It's not going to mean an end to cowardly and gutless attacks. It's not going to mean an end to gang membership. And we certainly can't resolve societal issues by just locking up people for longer. There has to be early intervention. There has to be the opportunity for rehabilitation, but there also has to be consequences for crime. I do expect, and call me old fashioned, to see criminals punished for the crimes that they do.

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.