Following the Christchurch Mosque shootings politicians are calling for banning private ownership of semi-automatic weapons.
I agree that they should be banned but believe we need much much more.
Simply banning semi-automatics without ending the underlying causes of the shootings is just saying "It's OK to murder 25 Muslims but not 50"
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Did P addiction cause Australian murder?
A high profile Aussie rules coach has been killed, apparently by his son. Local papers are suggesting that the son was a methamphetamine addict, and this may have caused the murder.
Less invested social commentators such as Stephen Lord "Lordy" on Google+ have asked:
My answer to him is that western society has invested so much in the view of the drug user as "Victim" and the supplier as villain that its official disinformation channels find it difficult to find any different narrative.
Less invested social commentators such as Stephen Lord "Lordy" on Google+ have asked:
"Why is it that illegal drugs are an excuse for a crime?
...
Before blaming the drug, try blaming the incredible arrogance or ignorance of the person who used a drug that has a history of turning users violent _anyone recall a story about a homeless guy getting his face eaten off?
How does blaming one illegal act excuse another?"
My answer to him is that western society has invested so much in the view of the drug user as "Victim" and the supplier as villain that its official disinformation channels find it difficult to find any different narrative.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
The Show (and Tell) Trial of Kim Dotcom
Interesting analysis of the Court of Appeal ruling that basically said that Kim Dotcom has to rebut the US "evidence" against him without knowing what that evidence is.
"That – unfortunately – is the hook on which Dotcom is currently being hung. His rights to freedom and family life and to reside here aren’t very well protected by our current extradition law and practice. Somehow, he has to convince the Supreme Court that in this day and age, putting more meat on the skeletal evidence currently available to him will far more accurately satisfy the needs of justice."
"Do we really want the Dotcom case to end up with this same kind of travesty? One where, in line with the Court of Appeal argument, the judge at the extradition hearing feels that his role is so necessarily limited that he must send the defendant back to face trial, even on the basis of dodgy evidence?"
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Justice delayed is justice denied
This news item raises an interesting question.
Aside from the negative effects having charges pending for so long have on the accused, this means that the victims of crime don't see justice in a timely manner.
There is a legal maxim "Justice delayed is justice denied" meaning that if legal redress is available for an injured party but is not delivered in a timely way it is effectively the same as getting no redress. This is the basis for the right to a speedy trial, so what is happening in our courts to deny that right?
Daljit Singh who was a Labour Party candidate and seven other "men accused of an alleged Auckland Super City voter scam have had their trial shifted to the High Court. Police allege that the scam involved people from throughout the North Island falsely enrolled to vote in the 2010 Auckland Super City elections.[...]It has been set down for up to eight weeks and is due to begin in October - three years after the men were arrested." NZ Herald NewsWhy are our courts so slow? Three years after being arrested seems a ridiculous time to wait for a trial but every day there are reports of people being sentenced for minor offences they were arrested for six months to two years ago.
Aside from the negative effects having charges pending for so long have on the accused, this means that the victims of crime don't see justice in a timely manner.
There is a legal maxim "Justice delayed is justice denied" meaning that if legal redress is available for an injured party but is not delivered in a timely way it is effectively the same as getting no redress. This is the basis for the right to a speedy trial, so what is happening in our courts to deny that right?
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Police upset burglary victim used Facebook to name and shame
The victim of a housebreaking who lost "two laptops, containing vital information for work and business" and would have lost much more had she not arrived home when she did managed to find out who the culprits were and outed them on Facebook has been criticised by Inspector Ed Van Den Broek, area tactical response manager, Rotorua police:
Of course, if the police and the courts did their jobs and got professional housebreakers off the streets we wouldn't need to take "vigilante action" which in any case (at least in my mind) is something a lot stronger than naming someone on Failbook.
"But don't post people's names in the social media sites, and make sure you call police if you see anything suspicious or you find out any information that may lead to criminals being apprehended by phoning the police or Crimestoppers helpline"
Of course, if the police and the courts did their jobs and got professional housebreakers off the streets we wouldn't need to take "vigilante action" which in any case (at least in my mind) is something a lot stronger than naming someone on Failbook.
More at NZ Herald
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Not a bad pay packet
The Herald reports:
Let's see. One year in home detention and the equivalent of 4½ weeks work for which you get $883,533.40 less about 9% reparation. Who says crime doesn't pay?
(edited) Judge Clark sentenced Brian Joseph Scandlyn, 29, unemployed, to a year's home detention, 180 hours of community work and ordered $7,643.21 reparation be paid to local businesses affected by Scandlyn who wrote cheques from a closed bank account. He had earlier pleaded guilty to two charges of engaging in a money-laundering transaction knowing that part of the $883,533.40 he had obtained was the proceeds of a serious offence. NZ Herald Full story
Let's see. One year in home detention and the equivalent of 4½ weeks work for which you get $883,533.40 less about 9% reparation. Who says crime doesn't pay?
Friday, January 28, 2011
Stressed out Judge?
Judge Tony Adeane, a district court judge who works in Hawke's Bay and Gisborne courts looks like he's reaching the end of his tether, and has been in the news a few times over the last couple of weeks.
Two weeks back the lawyers for 2 accused of aggravated assult on a policeman scheduled a bail hearing then said they wanted a delay so they could apply later. Adeane is reported as saying he would not accept court proceedings "sitting in limbo"" and remanded the accused in custody the application.
Eight days ago he was reported as jailing a man for contempt after he shouted abuse from the public gallery of the court.
Today there are two reports about him, presumably from yesterday. In the first, he is reported as saying "Taggers should expect to be sent to jail" while sentencing a tagger to community service while in the second he supposedly said "Home detention does not work as a deterrent in Hawkes Bay [...] It has not been the experience of the District Court in Hawkes Bay that home detention truly is an equivalent of prison - it doesn't have the same deterrent effect and most offenders realise that" while sentencing a recidivist shoplifting gang member to home detention.
The first two cases suggest the actions of a man who has been pushed to the point where he is starting to experience work place stress and is letting his more difficult "customers" know that he has had enough of their antics. You have to wonder why his words in the other two cases don't match his actions, ¿Que? presumes that sentencing guidelines are forcing him to issue sentences he recognises as futile and inadequate.
¿Que?'s position is that our society is at the mercy of career criminals because bad behaviour is permitted to ratchet up into criminal behaviour with no effective sanction until a person with dozens or hundreds of convictions finally cripples or kills an innocent person. It seems it isn't only the public who are victims of this process, Judge Adeanes' comments and actions makes ¿Que? think that even judges are victims of the New Zealand cirque d'justice .
Update
The failure of community sentencing is nothing new, nor a particularly New Zealand issue; they have similar problems in England as this two year old report from the BBC shows
Two weeks back the lawyers for 2 accused of aggravated assult on a policeman scheduled a bail hearing then said they wanted a delay so they could apply later. Adeane is reported as saying he would not accept court proceedings "sitting in limbo"" and remanded the accused in custody the application.
Eight days ago he was reported as jailing a man for contempt after he shouted abuse from the public gallery of the court.
Today there are two reports about him, presumably from yesterday. In the first, he is reported as saying "Taggers should expect to be sent to jail" while sentencing a tagger to community service while in the second he supposedly said "Home detention does not work as a deterrent in Hawkes Bay [...] It has not been the experience of the District Court in Hawkes Bay that home detention truly is an equivalent of prison - it doesn't have the same deterrent effect and most offenders realise that" while sentencing a recidivist shoplifting gang member to home detention.
The first two cases suggest the actions of a man who has been pushed to the point where he is starting to experience work place stress and is letting his more difficult "customers" know that he has had enough of their antics. You have to wonder why his words in the other two cases don't match his actions, ¿Que? presumes that sentencing guidelines are forcing him to issue sentences he recognises as futile and inadequate.
¿Que?'s position is that our society is at the mercy of career criminals because bad behaviour is permitted to ratchet up into criminal behaviour with no effective sanction until a person with dozens or hundreds of convictions finally cripples or kills an innocent person. It seems it isn't only the public who are victims of this process, Judge Adeanes' comments and actions makes ¿Que? think that even judges are victims of the New Zealand cirque d'justice .
Update
The failure of community sentencing is nothing new, nor a particularly New Zealand issue; they have similar problems in England as this two year old report from the BBC shows
Community penalties 'laughed at': "One officer said: 'I know prisons are full, but they're full with the wrong people. We need to send out the message that if you've got a suspended sentence and you breach it, you go to prison.'"
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Stopping Crime: Finally someone "gets it"
From today's paper, a grieving father understands:
And from the same paper, we have evidence of a justice system that still "Doesn't get it"
So, if he's "a very real and serious danger to the community" has it been left until now to get him off the streets?
I've long felt that a big part of the problem we have with escallating violence and crime levels is that people, especially young people, get away with lesser crimes and learn that there are no concequences to their anti-social behaviour. This leads them to an ever increasing spiral of progressively worse behaivour until someone is killed and then there is an outcry.
I believe that if we started imposing small, but real, penalties from the start, then progressively increase those penalties until either the person learns to comply with what society requires or is removed from society, we'd be a lot better country to live in.
"Mr Borrell, whose son was killed by a youth already on bail for assault, said he favoured tougher sanctions against violent youth offenders, including short periods of incarceration, to 'shock' them before they progressed to life-threatening crimes." NZ Herald
And from the same paper, we have evidence of a justice system that still "Doesn't get it"
"One of the country's worst repeat drink-drivers has been jailed for two years after his 20th conviction for drink-driving and his 35th for driving while disqualified."NZ Herald
So, if he's "a very real and serious danger to the community" has it been left until now to get him off the streets?
I've long felt that a big part of the problem we have with escallating violence and crime levels is that people, especially young people, get away with lesser crimes and learn that there are no concequences to their anti-social behaviour. This leads them to an ever increasing spiral of progressively worse behaivour until someone is killed and then there is an outcry.
I believe that if we started imposing small, but real, penalties from the start, then progressively increase those penalties until either the person learns to comply with what society requires or is removed from society, we'd be a lot better country to live in.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Stopping the illegal drug trade
Originally announced in 20081 as tougher rules on psuedoephedrine, John Key has since announced that you and I will be unable to obtain psuedoephedrine based cold cures without a prescription as a way of fighting the 'P' (Methamphetamine) crisis this country is undergoing. Sure, it will still be available on prescription, but while his wife may have nothing better to do than sit in a doctor's waiting room for an hour or so, normal people aren't going to the doctor for a cold. Normal people are going to be denied the one really effective treatment for the symptoms of the common cold.
Will it work to stop the 'P' scourge? Of course it won't work, most of the psuedoephedrine that gets into the illegal drug manufacturing business is smuggled across the border and that's why customs will be given 140 extra staff to try and stop the flow of this substance. Even so, customs are reported as saying "'It won't be enough if people still want it, what the Government strategy lacks is adequate demand reduction - preventing people from using the drug in the first place. Education, marketing and changing social norms - put money into that [because] the smart money is trying to steer people from using.'" 2
And there's one problem for the government. To the best of my knowledge, no black market has ever been stopped by going after the suppliers. Even having the death penalty for drug trafficking as happens in several Asian countries doesn't stop the trafficking, as long as there are addicts prepared to pay for the product, there will always be someone desperate enough or stupid enough to supply that market.
The only way to eliminate the illegal drug black market is to eliminate the demand, something that governments are unwilling to do. In November 2009, the UK government fired David Nutt, the chairman of their official advisory body on drugs because he told them what they didn't want to hear:"IF THERE is one thing that politicians can and should do to limit the damage caused by illegal drugs, it is to take careful note of the evidence and develop a rational drug policy. Some politicians find it easier to ignore the evidence, and pander to public prejudice instead.And Nutt's actual offense? Repeating in public that there's substantial evidence demonstrating alcohol and tobacco to be far more harmful than either cannabis or ecstasy. Which is the other problem for the government (ours or the UK's), they can't or won't be rational about drug use. Politicians stand up pointing out that a drug addict needs to burgle houses or commit armed robberies to raise the $1,000 a week or so without apparently asking themselves why that addict is
“I can trace the beginning of the end of my role as chairman of the UK's official advisory body on drugs to the moment I quoted a New Scientist editorial (14 February, p 5). Entitled, fittingly enough, 'Drugs drive politicians out of their minds', the editorial asked the reader to imagine being seated at a table with two bowls, one containing peanuts, the other the illegal drug MDMA (ecstasy). Which is safer to give to a stranger? Why, the ecstasy of course."3
- Willing to pay $1,000 a week for the drug, and
- Forced to pay that much
Answering the second part is easier than the first. The addict needs to pay $1,000 for drugs that probably netted 3 or 4 dollars for the original grower somewhere in the third world because of a combination of the massive drug enforcement regimes by our government (and similar governments overseas) and a ruthlessly enforced monopoly by the illegal drugs cartels.
If the government wants to stop drug use, their only option is to ruthlessly go after the users. Lock them up in rehabilitation until they are "clean" and if they relapse, lock them up again. Keep doing this until they choose to stay clean. Deprived of the users, the criminal gangs will soon switch to other black market activities. I doubt that our government has the guts to do this, so the addicts will continue to consume drugs.
The other part of the equation is that $1,000 a week, per addict, going into the crime cartels. If you want to stop that without forcing the addicts to stop buying drugs, the answer is simple: Supply the addicts with clean, pure, drugs at a reasonable cost. The UK has done this off-and on for decades with heroin. When they are brave enough to supply addicts with medical morphine, crime goes down, when they force the addicts back into the black market, crime goes up. The addicts don't go away, and when they are being supplied through the black market, the black market exists and has "samples" for potential customers.
I wish our politicians would acquire the strength to face up to the facts about drugs and stop the hysterical, usually meaningless, and ultimately futile efforts they make against the supply side ... the demand side is where you need to focus your efforts.
Notes:
1Tougher rules to combat 'P', New Zealand Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10545066 November 2008
2 Drugs will keep coming – customs, New Zealand Heraldhttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10614118&ref=rssDecember 8 2009
3 David Nutt: Governments should get real on drugs. New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18099-david-nutt-governments-should-get-real-on-drugs.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news November 4, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Study trashes anti-tagging policies
NZ Herald News reports: "Taggers have trashed initiatives aimed at preventing graffiti, saying it just encourages them to keep vandalising private and public spaces.
New research aimed at understanding offender motivation may have implications for policy-makers and other agencies."
New research aimed at understanding offender motivation may have implications for policy-makers and other agencies."
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Drug Use and Crime
Every looked at the court pages in the newspaper? Have you noticed how often the people in the courts for violent crimes are drug addicts? These days in Aotearoa New Zealand it's largely "P" (Meth amphetamine), but a few years back it was heroin. It makes sense for "P" users to be violent, but ever wonder why a sedative would make people violent criminals?
The answer is very simple. If you're addicted to a drug, you have to have it on a regular basis. If it's an illegal drug you have to get it from the black market, if you're getting it from the black market you are going to pay an outrageously inflated price. If you're a manual worker with a $500 / day habit there is no way you are going to make that money legitimately.
What's worse, the profits from that illegal drug trade go straight to the criminal gangs. Ever watched the Sopranos? If you didn't it tells the tale of a fictitious New Jersey, US, Mafia "Family". The series concentrated on the murders and interplay between the gangsters, but always in the background were the ways they raised their money. They make money from hijackings, gambling, loan sharking, prostitution and they make a lot of money from drugs both directly by dealing in them and indirectly by "taxing" other illegal activities in their area. Women turning to prostitution to finance their drugs pay protection, and so forth.
Here in New Zealand, the drug trade is firmly in the hands of the gangs and in any area one gang has a monopoly, they just set the price at what ever they want and every time there is an illegal drug purchase the gangs profit.
So what can we do?
History teaches us that simply prohibiting drugs doesn't work. As long as there is a market, someone will step up to supply that market. In the USA prohibition failed because there was a market for alcohol and the Mafia stepped in and had that market. As long as I can remember, there has been an attempt to deal with drugs in the same was as the US dealt with alcohol, and it simply hasn't worked. It's just made the criminal gangs richer than they could ever imagine.
Some people suggest "decriminalizing" drugs in the hands of the users. That would be worse than what we have now. It would still be illegal to sell them and so the supply and distribution would remain in the hands of the criminals. It would probably increase use and give them even more money.
To stop more people becoming hooked on addictive drugs we have to stop the criminals from running their distribution networks, and the only way we are likely to achieve that is to stop people buying from them. Once they stop making money from drugs, the criminals will move onto something else. That's right, to end the drug black market we have to stop people buying drugs from the black market.
There's really only two options for doing this, and neither of them are particularly nice. We either need to stop people using drugs, or we need to legally supply addicts with the drugs they crave.
Information campaigns haven't stopped drug use, so the only way I can see to stop addicts using drugs is to get them off the streets: compulsory rehab on a huge scale and if that doesn't work we send them back again and again until they are clean. Somehow I can't see this being at all popular.
The other option is to supply addicts with maintenance supplies of their drugs. Until 1968 Britain did exactly this with heroin (Wikipedia), if you could prove to a specialist doctor that you are an addict and you don't intend giving up you could get a prescription to get your heroin from a pharmacy. While they were doing this it worked quite well, unfortunately (as I understand it) it was only for opiates, and it was politically unpalatable so the scheme was always being fiddled with. Starting from the late 1960s they kept changing their approach and the black market came back to life. Some other European countries are experimenting with it.
I think it's time we tried this, and not just for heroin. We need to accept that the addicts of both opiates and stimulants are going to continue being addicts and move to a sensible solution that will stop them having to lead lives of prostitution or crime to pay huge amounts to the illegal gangs to finance their habits.
Originally published on Qondio
The answer is very simple. If you're addicted to a drug, you have to have it on a regular basis. If it's an illegal drug you have to get it from the black market, if you're getting it from the black market you are going to pay an outrageously inflated price. If you're a manual worker with a $500 / day habit there is no way you are going to make that money legitimately.
What's worse, the profits from that illegal drug trade go straight to the criminal gangs. Ever watched the Sopranos? If you didn't it tells the tale of a fictitious New Jersey, US, Mafia "Family". The series concentrated on the murders and interplay between the gangsters, but always in the background were the ways they raised their money. They make money from hijackings, gambling, loan sharking, prostitution and they make a lot of money from drugs both directly by dealing in them and indirectly by "taxing" other illegal activities in their area. Women turning to prostitution to finance their drugs pay protection, and so forth.
Here in New Zealand, the drug trade is firmly in the hands of the gangs and in any area one gang has a monopoly, they just set the price at what ever they want and every time there is an illegal drug purchase the gangs profit.
So what can we do?
History teaches us that simply prohibiting drugs doesn't work. As long as there is a market, someone will step up to supply that market. In the USA prohibition failed because there was a market for alcohol and the Mafia stepped in and had that market. As long as I can remember, there has been an attempt to deal with drugs in the same was as the US dealt with alcohol, and it simply hasn't worked. It's just made the criminal gangs richer than they could ever imagine.
Some people suggest "decriminalizing" drugs in the hands of the users. That would be worse than what we have now. It would still be illegal to sell them and so the supply and distribution would remain in the hands of the criminals. It would probably increase use and give them even more money.
To stop more people becoming hooked on addictive drugs we have to stop the criminals from running their distribution networks, and the only way we are likely to achieve that is to stop people buying from them. Once they stop making money from drugs, the criminals will move onto something else. That's right, to end the drug black market we have to stop people buying drugs from the black market.
There's really only two options for doing this, and neither of them are particularly nice. We either need to stop people using drugs, or we need to legally supply addicts with the drugs they crave.
Information campaigns haven't stopped drug use, so the only way I can see to stop addicts using drugs is to get them off the streets: compulsory rehab on a huge scale and if that doesn't work we send them back again and again until they are clean. Somehow I can't see this being at all popular.
The other option is to supply addicts with maintenance supplies of their drugs. Until 1968 Britain did exactly this with heroin (Wikipedia), if you could prove to a specialist doctor that you are an addict and you don't intend giving up you could get a prescription to get your heroin from a pharmacy. While they were doing this it worked quite well, unfortunately (as I understand it) it was only for opiates, and it was politically unpalatable so the scheme was always being fiddled with. Starting from the late 1960s they kept changing their approach and the black market came back to life. Some other European countries are experimenting with it.
I think it's time we tried this, and not just for heroin. We need to accept that the addicts of both opiates and stimulants are going to continue being addicts and move to a sensible solution that will stop them having to lead lives of prostitution or crime to pay huge amounts to the illegal gangs to finance their habits.
Originally published on Qondio
Monday, April 6, 2009
Three Strikes Law
There's an old joke that goes
The currently proposed law to send people to jail for 25 years on their third major crime suffers from the same type of flaws. Our prisons are full to the point of overflowing and the government is having to spend a lot of money on new prisons or working out how to get more people into the current ones. This law will only add to the number of people in our prisons, consuming tax payer dollars and adding noting back to society.
To me the logic flaw is so obvious I don't understand why nobody is pointing it out. Serious criminals don't happen overnight, they start out as petty criminals and get away with it. It's just human nature to always press against the boundaries, and for over a generation we have been pretty much ignoring the petty crimes. At the bottom of the heap is graffiti vandalism and general loutishness by children and teens. Even if they are caught nothing is done, so they do it again, nothing happens, and they keep going, gradually getting worse.
Soon they are in youth gangs and things just get worse. Burglaries, stand-over tactics, violence yet they are still under age and the police and youth courts effectively do nothing. When they become of age, judges start giving them minor penalties ... community service that they don't perform and fines they never pay.
Sooner or later they put someone in hospital, do an armed robbery, or kill someone. Finally something is done, but by now the criminal associates only with other criminals, are regarded as a "big man" for their criminal level and as soon as they are on the street again they go back to their life of crime.
At this point, after dozens of burglaries (hundreds of houses burgled if they are drug addicts), dozens of peoples lives ruined the Three Strikes rule would finally kick in and they will be gone. For every habitual criminal removed by this, there will be plenty of people waiting to step into their place in the criminal underworld.
Just like the mathematicians that can't understand where the third man came from, our politicians can't seem to understand that these adult criminals came from somewhere.
Wouldn't it make much more sense to stop the offending early. Take the young graffiti vandals and kids who do minor theft and give them an appropriate punishment. No I don't mean throw them in the cells with adult offenders, I mean give them a penalty that will make them think twice about doing it again; and what's more let them know that if they do it again, next time it will be worse.
Surely a lot cheaper than building more prisons.
Originally published on Qondio
Two mathematicians are having coffee at a table outside their local cafe. While they are there they see two men walk into the empty building opposite and after a while three men leave. The mathematicians look at each other puzzled until one says "If someone else goes in it will be empty again."Obviously there's more going on than the mathematicians want to admit, they didn't consider the possibility that there may have already been someone in the apparently empty building, or perhaps there is another entrance they can't see. Either way, the mathematicians are obviously experiencing flawed logic in their attempt to preserve their original beliefs and their proposed solution makes little sense.
The currently proposed law to send people to jail for 25 years on their third major crime suffers from the same type of flaws. Our prisons are full to the point of overflowing and the government is having to spend a lot of money on new prisons or working out how to get more people into the current ones. This law will only add to the number of people in our prisons, consuming tax payer dollars and adding noting back to society.
To me the logic flaw is so obvious I don't understand why nobody is pointing it out. Serious criminals don't happen overnight, they start out as petty criminals and get away with it. It's just human nature to always press against the boundaries, and for over a generation we have been pretty much ignoring the petty crimes. At the bottom of the heap is graffiti vandalism and general loutishness by children and teens. Even if they are caught nothing is done, so they do it again, nothing happens, and they keep going, gradually getting worse.
Soon they are in youth gangs and things just get worse. Burglaries, stand-over tactics, violence yet they are still under age and the police and youth courts effectively do nothing. When they become of age, judges start giving them minor penalties ... community service that they don't perform and fines they never pay.
Sooner or later they put someone in hospital, do an armed robbery, or kill someone. Finally something is done, but by now the criminal associates only with other criminals, are regarded as a "big man" for their criminal level and as soon as they are on the street again they go back to their life of crime.
At this point, after dozens of burglaries (hundreds of houses burgled if they are drug addicts), dozens of peoples lives ruined the Three Strikes rule would finally kick in and they will be gone. For every habitual criminal removed by this, there will be plenty of people waiting to step into their place in the criminal underworld.
Just like the mathematicians that can't understand where the third man came from, our politicians can't seem to understand that these adult criminals came from somewhere.
Wouldn't it make much more sense to stop the offending early. Take the young graffiti vandals and kids who do minor theft and give them an appropriate punishment. No I don't mean throw them in the cells with adult offenders, I mean give them a penalty that will make them think twice about doing it again; and what's more let them know that if they do it again, next time it will be worse.
Surely a lot cheaper than building more prisons.
Originally published on Qondio
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Sensible Sentencing? How about honest reporting?
"Life means life", "Outrage because criminal released early" and similar headlines are the stock in trade of the news media in New Zealand, and it's a complete croc.
In the New Zealand penal system, convicted criminals are eligible for parole after completing a relatively small percentage of their sentence. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe for "minor" crimes (not that anyone is actually imprisoned for truly minor crimes) parole is pretty much automatic.
When a judge sentences a person to 5 years jail, it is in the full knowledge that they will be released in 18 months or 2 years, but the NZ Herald and other parts of the increasingly yellow New Zealand press insist on reporting just the headline sentence ... presumably because it sells more papers. Then when the person gets out "early" they pretend they never knew that the so called 5 year sentence was really only 2.
Working hand in glove with the yellow press are media creations like the "Sensible Sentencing Trust" - I'm not saying that these aren't genuine groups, but without the constant press publicity, they would vanish into obscurity. Just like the yellow Herald they affect surprise when a criminal is released and the news media repeats their words. None of these people are particularly stupid and it is inconceivable that they don't understand that the system is working exactly as the politicians intended.
When they say "If the judge who heard the case decided 5 years jail it should mean 5 years" they are ignoring the fact that the judge assigned 5 years in the full knowledge that the sentence would really only be two. Judges aren't stupid, and judges are required to know the law, so the judge was fully aware of the parole laws and took them into account when determining the sentence
Much as I hate to admit that their corrupt, politically manipulated, legal system does anything better than we do, this is one thing we should learn from the Americans. When a judge over there gives out that same 5 year sentence, it will be described as 2 to 5 years, and it will be reported in the press that way. Over there there is no public expectation that the person will actually serve more than 2 years. What there is is outrage when a serious criminal is sentenced to a short prison term, the judges listen to the public and adjust the real sentences accordingly. With the poor reportage here, that isn't likely to happen.
But wait, there's less.
There's another scam the press work on the public. How often do you see headlines like "Professional burglar gets 21 years prison" then when you read the article you see they got 1 year for this and 2 for that in a long list; finally there's an obscure phrase "the sentences are concurrent". That phrase says that the criminal has probably only received 5 or 6 months jail! How it works is that all these sentences are served at the same time (concurrently). This means that the effective sentence is not the sum of the sentences, but the longest single one. In theory concurrent sentencing is a good idea, if the criminal with a suspended license steals a car and drives through a stop sign, they have committed 3 offenses in only one action, so the theory says that they should receive a single penalty; presumably adjusted to allow for the multiple crimes.
Where the system breaks down comes in two parts. Firstly the press consistently misreports these sentences, the headline sentence should be the longest single sentence (and it should be the non parole period) ... imagine the public reaction if instead of saying "Criminal gets 21 years prison" they honestly reported the sentence "6 months prison for 21 burglaries" people would start asking "Why?"
The second breakage comes from the consistent misuse of the system. It's fair enough that one car theft gets one sentence, but what happens instead is a career criminal burgles a house a week for 2 years before the police arrests him. That isn't one criminal act that happens to break 3 laws, that's 108 separate crimes! The rules on concurrent sentencing should be changed so each burglary receives its own sentence and the sentences run consecutively!
Finally
Groups like the "Sensible Sentencing Trust" need to stop playing the media's dishonest game and start pressing for the public to be honestly informed about what is really happening in the courts. I'm sure an informed populace would start demanding sentences that actually fit the crime.
I believe in rehabilitation and forgiveness and as I can't agree with their hard-line "throw away the key" attitude to crime, I'd rather it wasn't the current "Sensible Sentencing Trust" but a replacement organisation that was set up to agitate for honest and appropriate sentences for crime, but right now they are all we've got.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
'Thief' billboard attracts complaint
NZ Herald:
The Advertising Standards Authority has received a complaint about a billboard which allegedly shows a thief stealing electrical transformers from an Auckland advertising company.
The article goes on to explain that the photo was taken by a witness to the theft who watched him dismantle and steal 15 transformers worth $5,000 and continues
But a disgruntled member of the public has complained to the Advertising Standards Authority, apparently over the fact that the billboard breaches the suspect's privacy by calling him a thief before it has been proven in court.
Madness! The person was seen removing the transformers, he was either legally entitled to remove them, or he wasn't. If he was legally entitled, he can sue for libel, if he wasn't then he is a thief, convicted or unconvicted, and the owners of the transformers have every right to display his picture in an attempt to recover their property.
To me, it seems another example of the growing attitude in our society to turn our faces away from nastiness until it escalates to the point where we can no longer ignore it because our noses are rubbed in it by the likes of William Bell or Nia Glassie's killers. Our society was so dedicated to pretending that nothing was going on that we left things to grow worse until it was too late
I'd like to see the name of the person who lodged the complaint about this ad revealed. They're either somehow connected to the thief, or are see-no-evil busybodies, in either case I'd like to see them publicly humiliated too.
Until we as a society can face up to the abuse and ratcheting levels of crime it will continue to get worse.
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