That's some very bizarre legal reasoning, and we're not going to see the downstream effects for at least two decades. Hopefully sanity will see that repealed, but I'm not holding…

There's a big comprehension gap between what you say and what Act says. Huge gap. So we now have attempted murder, manslaughter and murder as crimes that, as third strikes, will attract automatic life sentences regardless of the circumstances?

The maximum sentence for attempted murder is 14 years. Someone convicted…

*A Judge sentencing a strike three offender must give the maximum sentence unless it is ‘manifestly unjust’ to do so

A Judge sentencing a strike three offender must give the maximum sentence.

That Judge must order that sentence to be served with no parole unless it is 'manifestly unjust' to…

And printed before the Select Committee report too – there are now 40 offences. Somewhat more egregious is the following, however:…

[[http://www.act.org.nz/files/features/three-strikes.pdf|Digital…

1. Life without parole is no longer mandatory/available for third-strike manslaughter (it will be life with 20 years…

Onto the central point ... the argument – that prisoners who can't ever be paroled have no reason not to kill guards – sounds plausible in theory, but does it stack up?

We're not the first country to introduce three-strikes or life without parole. By how much did prisoner on…

a bit of stir-crazy could go a long way.

As in Attica stir-crazy or Reeves County stir-crazy.

Onto the central point ... the argument – that prisoners who can't ever be paroled have no reason not to kill guards – sounds plausible in theory, but does it stack up?

You'd imagine that those prisoners that are looking ahead at the rest of their natural life in jail,…

Though they don't generally have a reason to kill guards either. Deliberately.

Corruption would be interesting to check.

I imagine all the datas would have a bunch of noise.

Onto the central point ... the argument – that prisoners who can't ever be paroled have no reason not to kill guards – sounds plausible in theory, but does it stack up?

We're not the first country to introduce three-strikes or…

I am astonished that the union would suggest prisoners they regard as too dangerous to be kept in prison be released back into the community through shorter…

And how is that less bad than what I presume would be the standard manslaughter situation, where someone hits someone else in a rage, who then falls down and hits their head and dies?

The standard manslaughter situation would be more likely an intentional stabbing, where the offender just doesn't…

Theft is stealing something.
Robbery is theft plus violence, or threat of violence
Aggravated robbery is theft + serious violence, or theft + violence + weapon, or theft + violence + multiple offenders (or threats to this effect).
Burglary is theft + being unlawfully on premises (e.g.…

I'm not sure what, but giving a prosecutor the power to seek life without parole for a drink driving ... causing death charge seems excessive. Some manslaughters you want to count as as strikes – some ... you really don't.

There may be some manslaughters you don't want to count…

i.e. not just a gun, or knife, for example.

"Aggravated Robbery is one notch up. It is robbery with one or all of the following three things :

Grievous bodily harm is caused. (This means serious harm)

More than one person is involved (Robbery by two or more people)

A Weapon is used (Simply being armed is…

offender has a weapon.

Which leads to the question "what does the legal system define as a weapon?".

I know a crowbar counts from what Graeme has said

If only the judge had read the bill, or the changes, he'd know his concerns were misplaced. Burglary is not a strike offence.

I can't speak for the judge, but he mave have been trying to use non-technical terms to communicate with the notoriously ignorant public.

When I commented earlier…

That 'people who would be alive' argument is pernicious anyway. To make it work you have to calculate who is now alive that would be dead and compare them. Plenty of…

I blame Kim Workman. Had he not gotten smart with his Official Information Act requests – the ones that found that the version of three-strikes introduced would have saved precisely none of the lives ACT were trumpetting prior to the election...

Are these new claims then?

did you mean triable summarily?

Yes I did.

1. those that say they are.

2. those that say they are triable indictably, but which are listed in schedule 1 of the Summary Proceedings Act.

Of the 36 offences covered as strike offences, the following are triable indictably…

Preventive detention is just a way of giving life sentences to those who commit offences that don't carry life sentences.

Most people don't understand this, even some law students (such as a former flatmate).

If more people "got" that PD already allows judges to send recidivist violent/sexual offenders away under…

I don't understand it.

Certainly. Offences can be proceeded against in two different ways in New Zealand – indictably, and summarily. The indictable jurisdiction is for more serious crimes. The most serious crimes have to be heard indictably. Minor offences are all heard summarily. A bunch of offences in the…

It's already under fire from the judiciary

If only the judge had read the bill, or the changes, he'd know his concerns were misplaced. Burglary is not a strike offence.

3. limiting strikes to offending punished in the indictable jurisdiction – if offending is serious enough to count as a strike, the prosecution and courts should treat it seriously.

I don't understand it.

It's already under fire from the judiciary:

Did anybody hear Peter Williams QC on the wireless this morning. He appeared ready to strangle Garrett and risk his first strike.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3246736/Judge-criticises-three-strikes-policy

Why do they need to introduce a 3 strikes law for anything other than propaganda, when they could easily just ask (or failing that, legislate)…

So, is the shift from "life with a non-parole period of 25 years" to "maximum sentence with no parole" sufficient to overcome the A-G's BORA concerns about disproportionate punishment?

I believe the lightest sentence for manslaughter given in NZ in recent years was 300 hours of community service. For a…

I wonder if in some manslaughter cases this is going to weigh heavily on juries, who may be reluctant to convict if the consequences of a guilty verdict are pointed out to them.

I'm not sure if it's part of the legal philosophy here or anywhere else, but it seems…

Yeah ... that's not disproportionate at all.

I wonder if in some manslaughter cases this is going to weigh heavily on juries, who may be reluctant to convict if the consequences of a guilty verdict are pointed out to them.

So, is the shift from "life with a non-parole period of 25 years" to "maximum sentence with no parole" sufficient to overcome the A-G's BORA concerns about disproportionate punishment?

A life sentence with no possibility of parole for a drink-driving causing death 30 years after a conviction for a drunken…

Those two groups wanted to include smacking? Why? I thought the SST didn't want smacking to even be an offence. Why would they want it to be a strike offence? For PR purposes?

For incompetence purposes.

They didn't know what they were doing. The SST's draft didn't even include attempted…

Those two groups wanted to include smacking? Why? I thought the SST didn't want smacking to even be an offence. Why would they want it to be a strike offence? For PR purposes?

+1

I too thought it could only be so that you can complain some more about how…

6. Finally, the initial proposal of the Sensible Sentencing Trust and ACT's to include smacking as a strike offence has still been rejected.

Those two groups wanted to include smacking? Why? I thought the SST didn't want smacking to even be an offence. Why would they want it to…

"But Victoria University criminology Professor John Pratt said the proposed…

It has to be deeper than that, or young people wouldn't be voting for them as well

That would be the offspring I mentioned, influenced by their clueless parents.
Humans are hugely suggestible and children even more so.
We have to learn/be taught a massive amount of what we need…

Saying that this is about corrections policy is like saying a policy to provide completely free healthcare for everyone under 18 is a policy about senior citizens, because healthier children will live longer,…

From the government's press release, yesterday:

The regime is expected to create a gradual increase in the number of prison beds required. An extra 142 prison beds will be needed in the first 10 years. This will be taken into account by the…

This is a horrible, horrible way to to go.

This level of horrible, methinks?

Kim Workman, from lobby group Rethinking Crime and Punishment, agreed, saying the policy effectively transferred discretion from the judiciary to the police.

"Under the proposed legislation, the police could for example, lay a charge of assault of aggravated injury against an offender,…

This is a justice policy, not a corrections policy.

The sun doesn't rise in the east, and set in the west. It doesn't actually move at all. But, you know ...

The duck rule applies. It's about people in prison. It's a corrections policy.

So the Associate Minister of Corrections strongly opposes the Corrections policy of the government.

Although this is now being fronted by the minister of corrections, that is most likely because the minister of justice – who has responsibility for this bill – privately disagrees with it. This is a justice…

Associate Corrections Minister Pita Sharples says increasing punitive measures does not solve the problem of crime and violence.

He says the proposals will create huge disparities in sentencing and punishment which are completely out of proportion to the crime.…

Preventive detention is just a way of giving life sentences to those who commit offences that don't carry life sentences.

Intriguing, thanks

Only a few hundred more – but it looks like you're being all tough with teh crime. That's what matters.

Umm, it's not just how it looks, they really are getting tough.

The mandatory nature seems redundant with our never release clause of Preventative Detention.

This is an all-too-common misunderstanding of preventive detention. A sentence of preventive detention is not never release – once in operation it acts in exactly the same way as a life sentence.

Preventive detention is just a…

So this is just gonna increase the prisoner numbers

Only a few hundred more – but it looks like you're being all tough with teh crime. That's what matters.

It's aspects of a penal system that cross-over into mental health that seems sensible to me & only for the very few.

So this is just gonna increase the prisoner numbers, costing so much more, oh and just…

this is where the life without without parole for second strike murder comes in – the normal sentence for murder is life

Do you think this will lead to an adjustment in the sentences that judges hand down for murder on a second strike? Where they would have given life…

The whole city should not fund free pools in one area and not in others. Why should a retired ratepayer in Orewa pay for…

Also exacerbated by the "daddy knows best" tendencies of the current bunch voted for by our fellow citizens and approved in opinion polls. It seems we like being told what to do.

I despair when I know that most of those people were born in that post war daze dubbed…

I'm just pissed we have to use an american sports metaphor

Theres no reason for it not to be a kiwi sports metaphor as well...

Sure, we like to think we dominate the world in Rugby.... we actually demonstrably DO dominate it in Softball.

I'll probably tire of this quite quickly – because I have a feeling this will happen a lot over the next days, but I'm going to be fact-checking the media over their reporting of the bill and this announcement in the comments to this thread.

Actually, I pretty happy with…

Why in any semblance of a sane universe do we let the dickheads who nothing about a particular case decide how best apply the law?

Because this administration doesn't want to or won't listen to the experts/people who are doing the job and are at the coalface so to speak.…

the maximum applicable sentence, to be served without parole, is the consequence.

And this is what has pissed me off about this whole debate. It is the idea that some ill-educated ill-informed politician is allowed to tell a knowledgeable experienced judge how to best do the job.

Why in any…

I'm just pissed we have to use an american sports metaphor...

Pissed off , surely? ;-)

Claim: __The Government is getting tougher on repeat violent criminals as National and ACT parties have announced an agreement on a three-strike policy today.

The policy, announced by Prime Minister John Key, ACT leader Rodney Hide and Police and Corrections Minister Judith Collins, will…

Claim: The 'three strikes' change will go to a select committee and the public will be allowed to make submissions – but with ACT and National both supporting it, it will become law.

Slightly inaccurate. Judith Collins has said: "I will be writing to the Committee to…

Claim: the government is pushing ahead with a new law that will see offenders caught committing the same offence three times spending much more time in jail.

Misleading:

1. The law doesn't just apply across the same offence, an offender committing different offences from the list of…

Factcheck 1: Stuff article

Claim:…

"6 balls and you're over"?

But before you get that far, it's four balls and you walk... you could never sell that to the law and order crowd.

what happened to "6 balls and you're over"?

Excalibur

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABVP4zvpMFw

what happens if you are inside for life on your third strike and one of the first two strikes are over turned?

do you get re-sentenced?

It wouldn't be automatic, but an application for leave to file a late (or second) appeal would likely be looked upon favourably.

I would…

Anybody know?

Yes.

It won't count as a strike. Indeed, "strike" is somewhat of a misnomer. What happens is that when someone is first sentenced for a serious violent or sexual offence (committed after the law has entered into force), the Judge formally warns them and enters a first warning…

do you get re-sentenced?

*The general public, who vote for such stupid policies, and will see higher crime rates and spend many millions more on pointless prisons.

As an aside, anyone got any idea why the minister in charge of the sentencing and parole reform bill had nothing to do with this announcement?