As National plan 10 000 more prisoners, Goldsmith plots to limit Jury Trials
National are so ideologically hateful they will add 10 000 into NZ prisons for minor offences…
Ministry of Justice warns NZ First-National coalition commitment risks doubling prison population
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- The National-NZ First coalition agreement committed to ending concurrent sentences for offences committed while on parole, bail, or in custody.
- The Ministry of Justice estimated this could double the prison population, so the Government has opted to ‘encourage’ ending concurrent sentences as a first step.
- Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has previously said the Government would still honour the coalition commitment during this parliamentary term, but last night he said: “We’ll see.”
Honouring a National-NZ First coalition commitment could put an additional 10,000 people in prison for mostly minor offences, more than doubling the prison population in what Ministry of Justice officials describe as “not a feasible option”.
The estimate is contained in the ministry’s regulatory impact statement (Ris) on the suite of sentencing reforms that Cabinet has now signed off, with a bill enabling them to be introduced to Parliament this week.
Measures include capping sentencing discounts at 40%, limits on discounts for youth and remorse, a sliding scale for pleading guilty, and “encouraging the use of cumulative sentencing for offences committed while on bail, in custody, or on parole”.
In NZ we have angry Māori and Pacifica youth attacking dairy’s and service stations fighting exploited migrant workers from China and India while the white suburbs clutch their pearls and scream ‘something must be done’
The Political Right want a war on crime because their fearful reactionary voting base are always terrified by the Media’s lust with crime porn for click bait.
National are so ideologically hateful they will add 10 000 into NZ prisons for minor offences.
Their toxic cocktail of tough on crime policy will see our prison population explode by 10 000 for mostly minor crimes which will cost billions more while creating all the conditions for a massive prison riots and mass prison privatisation.
In NZ we are not interested in rehabilitating criminals or healing broken men, we want them to suffer and this desire to make the prisoners suffer is leading to counterproductive social policy that will only make issues worse.
To put 10 000 more into our broken prison system and think that is a solution gives you real insight into how ideologically hateful the Political Right have become.
But it gets so much worse.
As National are planning to double bunk our entire corrupt and violent prison system with an extra 10 000 convicted of minor offences, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is plotting to reduce access to Jury trials…
Government considers raising threshold for getting a jury trial
The government is considering raising the threshold for a defendant to choose a jury trial, in a bid to speed up the court system.
The number of active jury trials climbed from about 2000 six years ago to about 3400 last year, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said in a statement. The average duration of a case climbed from 349 days to 498 days over the same period.
Currently, defendants can choose to face a jury – rather than a judge alone – when charged with a criminal offence carrying a maximum prison sentence of two years or more.
Goldsmith said he was seeking feedback on a proposal to increase that threshold, saying jury trials were one of the biggest drivers of delays.
…you’ll tell yourself it’s just the crims, that you don’t need to worry about a Prison Industrial Complex, that removing Jury trials is prudent, you will slavishly spit any lie to hide the Police State you are worshipping.
Human Beings have intrinsic human rights.
Abusing people in prison to make them suffer all to scratch your itch of anger and fear is a sadism, it isn’t law and order.
Removing Jury Trials for those we despise so we can blow the prison population out by 10 000 is not social policy, it’s a revenge fantasy.
This is what we are now, this is who we have become.
Ain’t it funny how the factories doors close?‘Round the time that the school doors close?‘Round the time that a hundred thousand jail cellsOpen up to greet you like the reaper?
System of a Down – Ashes in the Fall
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I think the politicians have to realise that after a child hood in state care, prison is paradise and holds no threat. Locking up damaged individuals will not lower crime or incarceration rates.
100% correct you can be the next minister of Justice
That’s right. The factory doors close and the prison doors open.
This govt. cannot afford to help factories and manpower intensive industries to stay open or help to keep young people at school being fed proper lunch and getting qualifications, but it can afford more prison beds.
That suggests the need to see people punished, the thrill they derive from that, is the main reason for their negligence.
Can they do anything properly, without inflicting pain?
To allow an enormous area like the Central North Is. to die, is gross negligence.
Will those areas again vote in their blue MPs at the next election? Probably, because the only people left there will be the old traditional right wing voters, who don’t put 2+2 together and get the right answer.
Not those who really have to live with and adjust to this incredibly useless govt. The people who actually do the work, will be gone. The people who make the place interesting will be gone.
Inevitably some young men there (sorry, usually young men) will wallow in their misery and turn to crime. They could have been still working at the mills or service jobs supporting the mills. But this lazy, unimaginative govt. has wrecked that.
Very well said and right on the mark
For such a small population AO/NZ sure has a lot of problems–largely inflicted via post colonial fallout by the settler descendants and colonists, and latterly a 40 year neo liberal state and international finance capital parasites such as the Australian Banks.
This should be a land of plenty yet we have homeless, hungry and those that cannot see a doctor. There is a very dark group of NZers ranging just from conservatives, provincials, parochials, small business, self employed, though to reactionaries, tin foil hatters, racists and neo fascists.
“Lock ’em up” is both vindictive and a harbinger of more private prisons. The Sadists get their kicks and capital gets some more taxpayer money.
TM Pre colonial prisoners were treated poorly. They were killed, eaten or enslaved.
Colonisation introduced human rights to the prison system and it is unlikely Maori would want to return to the old ways.
Today all prisoners receive free warm dry accommodation
Free healthcare (including dental)
Free education
Free public transport and,
Free nutrition
I would suggest you actually go and spend some time there to see what it is really like .I have a family member who works in health in the corrections dept who sees the end result of your mentallity .She has to deal with at least 1 suicide or the aftermath of a failed attempt and also has to deal with the aftermarth of the continual assaults and rapes that occur daily .
Double bunking equals more sexual abuse are the state going to pay for the abuse.
Trial by unaccountable pharisees rather than a jury of one’s peers? How surprising, from Goldsmith.