Public Address | Cafe | Legal Beagle: Three Strikes five years on! Now with accurate numbers!

Bart Janssen

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 15:56:08 +1300

I have not provided the numbers for offending that would have been a second strike from Jun '10 – Jun '15 but was not because what would otherwise have been the first strike would have been between Jun '05 – Jun '10.

Ah I see. So your thesis is that…

Graeme Edgeler

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 14:04:42 +1300

So no I’m not excluding that person who committed two armed robberies within three years. Your own numbers say that only 103 people fit into that category.

Yes, you are. I have provided the numbers for:

offending that would have been a second strike from Jun '05 – Jun '10;…

Bart Janssen

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 13:32:25 +1300

From your post

In the five years prior to three strikes, 5517 people were convicted of an offence where that conviction would have been a ‘first strike’ had three strikes been in force at the time, and 103 were convicted of an offence that would have been a ‘second strike’.…

Graeme Edgeler

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 12:58:05 +1300

So yes you can absolutely add those numbers together.

You really can't.

Is someone who committed their first armed robbery on on 1 January 2010, who committed a further armed robbery on 1 January 2013, after they were released someone who has re-offended? I say they are.

Under your addition…

Bart Janssen

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 11:06:36 +1300

nearly every single one of them could have re-offended with a strike offence

Um no.

For that to have happened you'd have to argue that "first strike" crime rate dropped to near zero in the second five years and the only people committing first strike crimes were those who'd committed…

Graeme Edgeler

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 10:22:04 +1300

Over 10 years, of 10765 “first strike” offenders, a mere 171 re-offended!!!

You can't add these together. A bunch of the pre-first strike serious offenders will have reoffended since three strikes was enacted. In fact, nearly every single one of them could have re-offended with a strike offence, and it…

Bart Janssen

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 09:53:02 +1300

Some evidence of deterrence.

Just eyeballing those numbers I doubt that there is any statistical significance in the change.

What is far more interesting and less reported is the rationale behind the 3 strikes was to prevent the enormous problem of recidivism

Over 10 years, of 10765 "first strike" offenders,…

tussock

Sun, 08 Jan 2017 18:42:00 +1300

So, it was before this law about 2% of serious offenders would re-offend in a serious way, and of those, 4% (or 0.07% of the original) would offend for a third time. Or you're just more likely to get it pinned on you, or whatever.

And aside from judges not…

mpledger

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 11:14:23 +1300

There was a report in the paper recently about how the number of drink driving convictions (or maybe arrests) has gone down. So, yay!

But I happen to know that there has been less resources put into policing in this area. So basically there is no way of knowing whether…

David Hood

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 17:20:39 +1300

For the lack of significance of the policy- that you have to argue about how and why it might be compared with other things that have been going on, I think it illustrative to look at Australian state comparisons-

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/44E7066A7D173A95CA256BDC0012241F?opendocument

If you assume that Australia, as a federal aggregation, is…

Greville Whittle

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 11:08:25 +1300

A reduction of a few hundred in a population that size is likely to mean that the difference is not statistically significant. As you stated above that there are many other factors that could also account for the difference.

You could share the data with a statistician and get them…

Dennis Frank

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 10:30:04 +1300

I'm with the general public in this respect: same standard as for restorative justice. We just need to see a significant percentage improvement from both policies to make them seem credible. When it isn't forthcoming, we get the impression that policy-makers are operating on blind faith – or using smoke…

andrew r

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 10:23:56 +1300

Valuable research Graeme – cheers.
Many variables indeed in terms of measuring reducing recidivism efficacy.
I think third strike sentences are the real kicker. And the example you note is a great reflection of how inequitable the third strike effect is. That prisoner receiving the mandatory maximum 7 years prison…

Graeme Edgeler

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 09:54:24 +1300

Some, but so little that it is effectively negligible. Politics being a numbers game, the advocates of deterrence ideology would have to be able to cite significant numbers to win the public debate by presenting the policy as validated by testing.

Well, what type of evidence would convince you?

Dennis Frank

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 09:51:53 +1300

Graeme Edgeler

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 07:10:05 +1300

Okay, so no evidence of deterrence.

Some evidence of deterrence. The reduction in strike recidivism is greater than the reduction in strike offending.

Ian Dalziel

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 06:44:32 +1300

justice must be seen to be done...
...ergo, it must also first be done, to be seen.

Dennis Frank

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 06:01:19 +1300

Okay, so no evidence of deterrence. The onus is now on advocates of the policy to justify it. If reasonable people can see no evidence that the policy is necessary, support for it will ebb.

Equally, we don't seem to be getting evidence that restorative justice works, either. Intuitively, one…

Russell Brown

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 20:20:25 +1300

I now have this data, following contact by the Ministry of Justice after my retraction (and Nikki Macdonald’s excellent work in the Dominion Post) was published, and the Ministry apologised for falling short of the high standard they set for themselves, and offered to provide comparable data if I still…

Public Address

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 20:20:25 +1300

Discussion from blog post.