Why Dumping 3 strikes is smart politics and why Andrew Little is the smartest player
And those who obscenely harvest the grief of the victims of crime, the Sensible Sentencing Lynch mob, are at it again with this advert in the daily Newspapers…
…why have we allowed social policy to become so warped by anger?
Why are the victims of crime given such amplification to be able to mutate social policy into this agenda of suffering?
It’s almost as if NZers mouths water when they consider the punishment dirty filthy criminals should be forced to endure.
As if vengeance against them will somehow bring balance to the everyday hostility and insecurities modern day consumer culture with its narcissistic millennial selfie sidekick implodes upon us with every waking second.
If anyone, ANYONE, hurt my family or friends I’d want 5 minutes alone with them so I could take to them with a baseball bat. That’s not special, that’s just human nature. That’s why we ask a neutral judge to decide what should happen to a guilty person so that Justice with mercy triumphs over simple vengeance.
While I certainly believe the victims of crime should share their experience and speak directly to the person who has harmed them, I don’t believe their desires for the most punitive action possible should shape public policy that we must all live by because the counterproductive desires to have someone suffer for your suffering while human and understandable, shouldn’t, can not and will not build a civil society.
We have been led like the sleepy hobbits we is when it comes to tough on crime bullshit.
The mainstream media whip up crime hysteria (despite serious crime plummeting) and that hysteria is played by groups like the Sensible Sentencing Lynch Mob and is then harvested by peacock politicians who strut around with puffed up chests screaming ‘something must be done’.
If you thought the meth contamination hysteria was the only hysteria we’ve been led by, think again.
The get tough on crime hysteria is us at our worst.
So conditioned are the sleepy hobbits of muddle Nu Zilind to hate prisoners, we’ll continue with counterproductive law and order policy even if it’s creating more damage than good, so how on earth do you get an electorate so twisted with spite to do the right thing?
Why you play those petty consumers of bitterness with parlour tricks and theatre so you can finally do good and you don’t feel ashamed or dishonest by playing them because they are as damaged emotionally as the prisoners we feed into the grinder of our private prison industry.
Dumping 3 strikes is smart politics and Andrew Little is the smartest player of smart politics. The man who has touched gold with every portfolio handed to him just screwed this one up and tripped did he? The man who timed walking away and catapulting Jacinda into the leadership was outflanked by NZ First was he?
By publicly dumping a law that was only rhetoric and theatre in the first place (it’s only impacted 20 prisoners) Labour…
- gives NZ First oxygen at a time when Labour desperately requires their coalition partners to survive
- blunts National’s law and order attack which they will be playing all year with new tough on crime members bills.
- Allows the perception to the petty consumers of bitterness that Labour have had to back down on prison reform when the actual process will continue. Liberal twitter and NGOs on twitter will lambast Little and scream at the injustice which will convince the petty consumers of bitterness in muddle Nu Zilind that Labour must have changed their position to outrage the Twitterratti in such a way.
Little loses the battle so he can win the war.
I don’t think any one gets it. When you go to the broker aka WINZ for education and advice, that’s just them taking your fiat money and running away with it.
Little is a good man, genuine in his beliefs to improve society for all and I would argue extremely honest. Light years beyond the entire National Party caucus.
But conversely, I see Andrew Little, not as a politician at all or even having any political instincts at all. And as much we loath politicians they are also necessary people who have to take a lead and sell that vision to the suspecting public who don’t trust them. And here he fails.
Why is the 3 strikes law so bad? I see it as a gimmick too but tell us why it needs to go.
Why do bail laws need to be weakened part from emptying jails for the sake of it?
Why, rather ironically, apply an arbitrary onus on Judges to not imprison on offences carrying and imprisonable term of fewer than two years?
Why is treating the symptoms that create the prison population seen as the answer rather than throwing the kitchen sink at the cause?
What are you going to say, Andrew Little, when someone is harmed directly or indirectly as a result of your weakening of these acts?
Andrew, can you not see that National will find someone harmed by a crime be it anything to do with the watering down of these laws or not and portray that harm as a direct result anyway?
And why in Gods name did you not do the numbers and determine NZ Firsts position first before spouting off about Labour policy as if it were a “first past the post” government? Why have this blow up so publically? How in GOds name does this help you? Where the F was Jacinda on this?
Politics is a long game and these changes scream going gooey and mushy on criminals. They need not be but it requires a carefully planned strategy.
You can blunder around doing what you think is right here and now and easily lose the next election!
Long-term, fund drug rehab, classify drug addiction as a mental health disorder not a crime, fund massive education campaigns, help families struggling with the fall out of drug addiction, massively increase funding for the Ministry of Children to break the cycle and do whatever it takes to create employment in government jobs so people can take in pride in themselves who would otherwise be unemployable because of crime and drugs.
Long term strategy, long game.
And for fuck sake, Simon Bridges over the top howling at epic proprotions at this latest but insignificant embarrasing gaff up is just embarrassing. He is amatuer hour all by himself!
You can’t seriously tell me that this has all been part of Little’s plan?!
Making yourself look like an idiot to make somebody who won’t even be in the next parliament look good all the while reminding voters that your soft on crime… it’s next level genius if you’re a complete moron.
“By publicly dumping a law that was only rhetoric and theatre in the first place (it’s only impacted 20 prisoners)”
The trouble with letting sleeping dogs lie is that sometimes they get up and bark and bite again. When things are left just as they are, the can have severe negative consequences downstream.
An example of this is how Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Because of this, it is not clear that the President of the United is not in fact above the law, which is exactly what Trump is arguing.
I agree with you Martyn and would like to add. I see my sister signed this petition and she asked me to and I said a big fat NO and I told her why and I will tell you why. We do not need this policy our judges already have the tools to sentence those Garth Mc Vicar labels the bad buggars.
The problem is some of our judges do not use all of the tools they have
for example for manslaughter cases they have the discretionary powers to give the offender 20 yrs if they believes the crime is severe enough to warrant this and some are, particularly if the offenders has previous violent offences. But really we shouldn’t even get to this stage as they need to be punished properly and treated properly (rehab & counselling ) while they are incarcerated for their first violent offence so it becomes a deterrent and they can be helped before it is too late and they reoffend. The parole system can also act as a deterrent but it needs to be funded properly as monitoring cost money and all the proper checks and balances need to happen so we don’t see cases like the Christie Marceau one ever happen again as this could have easily been prevented. We also need to remember the state is also guilty of violently offending. How many prisoners do we have in our prisons that were sexually or brutally assaulted while under the states care or abused while incarcerated. Some may have been just boys and they have gone on to perpetuate the same level of violence on others. Now whose fault is this and how can this be fixed? 3 strikes has not worked in America so why would it work here and neither has the death penalty. Until we have the hard conversations we need to have we will not fix things. I would like to add there are some in prison that should never see the light of day, unfortunately this is the case.
We have to be very careful that we do not allow the likes of Guyon Espiner RNZ to do a beat up and drive a wedge between NZF and Labour ( a mountain out of a molehill)…there is no love lost between him and Winston Peters…almost vendetta-ish. In fact does Peters even talk to him?
…(after Espiner’s pillorying Peters over not going after expelling Russian diplomats/’spies’ on the trumped up unsubstantiated Skripal Novichok poisoning case)
imo Espiner is a rottweiller on small issues especially involving cracks in the Left but shows poor investigative journalism on the really big issues particularly as regards the neolib Nactional policy …in the mainstream media the Nacts got through with a cronyist free pass for nine years imo
Agreed Andrew Little is good at his job, but NZF is also entitled to their opinions as Jacinda Ardern pointed out on RNZ this morning to Espiner
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018648867/jacinda-ardern-discusses-three-strikes-peters-legal-action
Mike Williams ( Howard League prisoner rights )has argued that the Three Strikes issue is not the most important , effective or the biggest issue of reducing prison population /human rights for prisoners…there are far more important issues eg reducing prison sentences. Williams gives a good perspective on this.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018648733/political-commentators-mike-williams-and-matthew-hooton
“87 Percent Of Prisoners Were Unemployed Before Prison”
This stat shows the evil of unemployment. Unemployment tells a person ‘you are surplus to society’. When a person is not part of society they surely act like they are not part of society. A real FULL EMPLOYMENT policy would have a significant effect on the number of people thrown into prisons.
Not a policy which says unemployment will fall from 4.8% to 4.5%. A policy that says having 130,000 people without enough income, with nothing to do, feeling like they are neglected and unwanted, bringing their children up in poverty, is not good for society.
A policy where a Prime Minister can state, like Holyoake did, “I can count the number of unemployed on one hand, I can name them all”
+100 …says it all
The gnats created the social and economic conditions for our prison to thrive by this I mean numbers swelled and so did some people bank balances. We need to stop this too much laissez faire policy not enough investment in social policy that addresses the issues economic policy creates hence some profiting from others misery.
That’s really reaching….
Andrew Little is only playing 2D chess. Winston is playing 5D chess, and winning.
Good stuff!
I support Martyn’s reasoning especially the tough-on-crime hysteria that is so widespread even in these contributions. Why else would you support the three strikes law when it does not stop crime? As Martyn says, you cling to it because you want to punish people. I haven’t got much faith in a punitive judicial system. When we focus on rehabilitating those caught offending, that is likely to help most to resign themselves to their unequal position in society and not get caught again trying to compensate for their relative poverty. With the legal aid system diminishing, the class based judicial system protecting private property is becoming more evident.
They should get rid of three strikes. It is idiotic law making.
On a different note, is Andrew Little sporting a new Corbanesque look?????
Andrew Little smart??? He is so out of touch with what NZer’s want it is a joke. He is a fool, made to look like an even bigger fool by Peters. Good god, he cant even win an electorate seat, he is only in parliament because of his buddies in the unions.
When the minister of justice (Little) describes burglary and car theft as misdemeanors you have to wonder where he got his degree from. The word misdemeanors means minor crime, like speeding, not burglary, which is a serious crime. Just ask someone who has been burgled or had their stolen.
As the word misdemeanor doesn’t appear in any NZ statute, and would not be used by a competent NZ lawyer, I have to wonder if Little Angry Andy has been watching too many American cop shows.
National flat on 45% since election night, Labour up on 40% from election nights 37%
Should get yourself some better anecdotes ie the difference between out of touch and fooling every one and why it doesn’t apply to you.
Why does Gary bother ? An ad hominem blast with the icing on the shrieky cake of it being the always and long failed jibe “Angry Andy”.
I think your analysis is pretty good Martyn.
Doubt there’s much traction in Bridges hating on the government for NOT effecting the law change which Bridges ALWAYS said he hated. Relevance young man, relevance.
LITTLE ahead of his times in neolib nasty NZ Inc Aotearoa Lost Hobbit Territory.