Posts by Gareth Ward
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Oh, and very sorry to hear that about Bob, shame to lose a valuable voice.
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Interestingly Clare Curran tried to add a line to 92A through a Private Members Bill along the lines of "there has to be a working code of practice in place asnd the Minister has to agree to it".
But the Government blocked it... -
THE height of a proposed high-rise development has been slashed because parents fear pedophiles will be able to spy on children from the top storeys
That's... I... But... Good Lord. Do pedophiles only operate effectively more than 60feet in the air? -
(I was right the first time, huh. Double D'oh).
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D'oh
DON'T have to be your first offence -
Can I ask what are the realistic offences to be considered a first strike? i.e. what offence will likely get you >5 years as a first offence? (Not that these have to be your first offence - while this law isn't retroactive, sentencing will still take into account older crimes).
I don't want to come off like I'm searching for outlandish unlikely outcomes for this law. Which seems like it will have very few, especially compared to overseas jurisdctions.
So I'll just say that given how restricted it is, and how few people it will seem to trap, why are we really bothering given the counter-to-natural-justice problems with it? Aren't we dealing with those few similar cases already in the sentencing provisions?On the flip-side, I've regularly been decrying tinkering with sentencing at the margins for violent crime as entirely pointless as at that point those individuals aren't undertaking economic rationality decision-analysis at that level. So perhaps the huge-stick deterrent for being a 3rd-time recidivist nasty-type is actually something that will work given it's huge and well-publicised impact?
As Lucy said, do we know how many people this is likely to trap, and what the current sentencing impacts are for them? Will DoJ provide that sort of analysis for select committee?
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Thanks for the info Graeme. I find myself siding with your view that it's not as horrifically stringent as some when put in practice but still have issues with the basic justice of that third strike.
I'm also considering a "decreasing slide in severity" of crimes. You start with, say, murder at the lower end of offending. 8 years. Then an aggravated robbery. 6 years. Then kidnapping. 25 years?
Is a peverse train of thought, but still... (and apologies if my sentence guesses are off but I trust you get the intent) -
I'd like that considered more than the magic number 3, and glib saying "three strikes and you're out [in surely?]".
It's too hard to get "Appropriately weighted prison sentences through judges empowered to analyse and consider the contexual issues" on to a billboard though. Especially when that huge picture of your party leader takes up so much space.
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So Graeme, with the new list of included offences, what's the lowest possible "usual" sentence for those? You mentioned three years in your original entry, does this still hold under the new offences list?
That would still be my major gripe - two relatively serious offences, then you commit a more minor offence with maximum sentence of three years and you're off for 25? Clearly you're a nasty bugger but that still seems mainfestly unjust.Also, it's interesting that it's the sentence imposed by the judge that triggers the strikes, rather than the nature of the crime. Will this see judges adjust their sentencing to either have it considered a strike or not? Will there be a spike in 4yr11month and 5yr1month sentences?
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the problem with Section 92(A) is that it places the adjudication of a legal dispute either in the hands of parties who are not competent to make such decisions (ISPs and telecommunications companies), or (in the approach endorsed by RIANZ' Campbell Smith) in the hands of one party to the dispute.
I ain't no high falutin' lawyer type - but this seems so blatantly against core concepts of natural justice that I'm floored it's made it into legislation?