I found yesterday’s post Cabinet press conference quite jarring.
Clearly National was still smarting about criticism about the way it was handling Treaty issues.
So it did what National Governments have done since time immemorial, it played the law and order card.
It did this by announcing that legal aid would no longer be available for the preparation of cultural reports provided on sentencing and that the Government would scrap Labour’s goal of reducing the prison muster by 30%.
Former National Prime Minister called prisons a moral and fiscal failure. It is a shame that this Government does not think the same.
The policies show the extent of National’s thinking. A cut here, a reversal there and no idea of how to improve things.
And the justifications are jarring. Expense is the alleged rational for not funding cultural reports. The cost of cultural reports last year was in the vicinity of $7.5 million or enough to pay for 50 extra prisoners to be incarcerated for a year. You can do the maths of the cost of imprisoning 3,000 people a year and this does not include the capital cost of building new prisons.
Goldsmith also announced that the Government would introduce changes to the Sentencing Act to cap possible discounts at 40%. This is American culture war attack “activist judges” quality populism.
And the problem is capping sentence discounts will increase the number of trials as defendants decide to roll the dice with a defended hearing rather than receive a very modest discount. And restorative justice, something that can be remarkably effective, will be adversely affected and less popular.
These reforms display a meanness of spirit and the pursuit of vengance rather than justice. And I guarantee they will be a moral and fiscal failure.
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