The hypocrisy of labelling the Left as soft on crime while the Right profit from crime hysteria

The hypocrisy of labelling the Left as soft on crime while the Right profit from crime hysteria…

The Government has had enough of ‘lenient’ sentences – it has the previous National Government to thank for enabling them

…it’s true. All of Labour’s plan to lower prison numbers were driven off National Party legislation.

National tightened parole conditions and as part of that tightening they allowed for more home detention.

The courts seized upon that Home Detention because the FACTS showed us that less people in prison meant more people on HOME D saw lower  re-offence rates.

THOSE. ARE. THE. FACTS!

How dare the Right claim the Left are soft on crime when it is the Left using the exact same legislation National passed to lower the crime rate and lower the re-offence rate.

READ THE STATS!

• The Government has passed its flagship sentencing reforms that will lead to longer sentences and add an estimated 1350 prisoners over 10 years
• Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said the changes are a response to a rise in violent crime and sentences of ‘undue leniency’ under Labour
• One of the major factors leading to more community sentences and fewer prison sentences were law changes in 2016, under the previous National-led Government

I said, READ THE FACTS!

But that “undue leniency” was enabled by two law changes made not under Labour, but in 2016 under the previous National-led Government. The changes added safeguards to community-based sentences, leading to their increasing use instead of prison sentences.

In the first five years of the changes coming into effect, from mid-2017, there was a 41% drop in the number of people starting short prison sentences, according to the justice sector’s Long-Term Insights On Imprisonment briefing (LTIB).

In real numbers, this translated to almost 3000 fewer offenders being given such a sentence following conviction.

The same drop (41%) occurred for those starting a long sentence, over the same period. By June 2022, the number of sentenced criminals in prison had dropped by 2500, compared to November 2017.

Judicial practices evolved with the changes. Before them, in the 2016-17 year, Justice Ministry figures show 13.5% of all those convicted were sent to prison. A slightly higher proportion – 14.3% – were given high-level community sentences (intensive supervision, community detention, or home detention).

By mid-2022, the proportion of community sentences had jumped to one in five, almost double the proportion receiving a prison sentence (10.7%). Intensive supervision, in particular, had become much more popular than a short prison sentence.

Intensive supervision is a community-based rehabilitation sentence for those who have a medium to high risk of reoffending, and who are convicted of more serious offences.

The 2016 changes by the previous National-led Government meant that electronic monitoring and testing for drugs or alcohol could be used to monitor compliance with intensive supervision conditions, such as an abstinence order.

One of the hopes was that it would help offenders get clean; an estimated 87%have a substance problem during their lifetime, while 47% currently have one.

“The Government recognises that we must do more than just hold offenders to account, and we must address the underlying causes of criminal behaviour and break the cycle of offending,” said then-Corrections Minister Judith Collins in November 2016, at the third reading of the drug and alcohol testing bill.

Swapping prison sentences for community-based sentences was perhaps an unintended consequence.

The judicial shift, from mid-2017, coincides with a fall in reoffending rates:

At that point, in mid-2022, New Zealand’s imprisonment rate had fallen to 150 people per 100,000 in prison – only slightly above the OECD average.

This was 30% lower than in early 2018, when the prison population – including sentenced and remand prisoners – peaked at 10,800 and the rate (214/100,000) was the sixth highest in the OECD.

That’s right!

Less people in prison and more people on Home D leads to less reoffence BECAUSE our prison system is corrupt, violent and underfunded.

You put damaged men into prison and they come out more damaged.

THAT’S WHAT THE FACTS SAY!.

So, the Punishment Pimps had to deal with a devastating critique from the NZ Herald and had Sir Ron shit all over their tough on crime rhetoric, so how do the Punishment Pimps at Sensible Sentencing respond?

With racist troops painting the Greens out as soft on crime.

How disgustingly racist are the Sensible Sentencing arseholes.

You are all so easily led on crime.

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