Posts Tagged ‘sensible sentencing trust’

Cosgrove slams McVicar’s role in Garrett affair

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, September 23rd, 2010 - 10 comments

Great video of Clayton Cosgrove getting right stuck into the Sensible Sentencing Trust’s Garth McVicar over his hypocrisy on  David Garrett. Cosgrove’s certainly no bleeding heart liberal so I’d say McVicar’s credibility on law in order is now pretty much shot.

Garrett and McVicar partners in crime

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, September 21st, 2010 - 36 comments

Garth McVicar is head of ‘tough on crime’ lobby group the Sensible Sentencing Trust. David Garrett is a serial offender who now faces further criminal charges for perjury.

So naturally McVicar is backing Garrett to head up a new hard-line law and order party.

Rough Justice

Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, July 31st, 2010 - 16 comments

The Economist has a great article looking at the American propensity to deprive their citizens of their liberty for trivial offenses. We have the same stupid political ratcheting here that causes it. A large part of that is fueled by groups like the Sensible Sentencing Trust. There needs to be a broad agreement across the political spectrum about such hysterical groups before they cause more damage.

On GEO group, conservative politicians, lobbyist groups, and prisons

Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, May 2nd, 2010 - 9 comments

In Florida, a legislative plan to close as many as five state prisons and ship inmates to a private prison run by GEO Group was scaled back last month.

The feds may be searching to see if former state House Speaker Sansom received any kickbacks from the company. The GEO group are also contenders for running private prisons here.

Renewed questions over Sensible Sentencing Trust & GEO Group

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, April 16th, 2010 - 45 comments

It’s time to renew the questions about links between the leading advocates of harsher prison sentences in New Zealand, the Sensible Sentencing Trust and GEO Group, a US private prison operation whose former name, Wackenhut Corrections, became a byword for corruption and abuse. Who is really behind this privatisation and longer sentences agenda?

Humour of the week

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 pm, April 6th, 2010 - 10 comments

David Slack says..

“Qantas passenger threatened to bring down flight with the power of his mind. Ten bucks says he’s wearing an ACT T-shirt”

But it made me laugh after a hard weekend. as it perfectly reflects that way I feel about the breed.

The bizarre world of sensible sentencing

Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, October 9th, 2009 - 20 comments

Stabbing a kid to death is OK because it’s: “expressing frustration over [tagging]” Taking away people’s access to the most effective ‘flu and cold treatment because it’s a minor source for an ingredient(less than a third of pseudoephedrine comes from pharmacies according to Key),  for a drug the use of which is already in decline: “a […]

Garrote them for shagging sheep

Written By: - Date published: 9:41 am, May 10th, 2009 - 39 comments

The strange Sensible Sentencing Trust three-strikes bill put up by ACT’s David Garrett aka ‘Garrote‘ has some strange implications. Scott at Imperator Fish points out this one. Even if lawmakers could accept the principle that after three serious offences you’re a goner, getting them to agree on what those offences should be would be next […]

Friday quiz – late edition

Written By: - Date published: 1:34 pm, March 21st, 2009 - 27 comments

Imagine two incidents when a person is at home and they hear someone outside their house. In the first incident, they grab a knife and head outside. In the second incident, they grab an air rifle and go outside. In the first incident, they see two taggers running away and chase them. In the second […]

Third party returns

Written By: - Date published: 1:06 pm, March 19th, 2009 - 10 comments

The Electoral Commission has released the third party spending returns for the 2008 election campaign and it looks like for all National and ACT’s fears that the $120,000 third party cap would stop groups from being able to express themselves, only the Council of Trade Unions came close with a spend of around $100k. Other […]

More questions on the Sensible Sentencing Trust

Written By: - Date published: 5:48 am, March 16th, 2009 - 52 comments

Last week, Tane pointed out that the private prison industry had been involved in corrupting the political process in the US by funding ‘tough on crime’ groups that call for longer sentences (and bigger profits for private prisons). He wondered if the same could be happening here with the Sensible Sentencing Trust. This provoked a press release […]

Sensible Sentencing Trust and GEO Group, a deafening silence

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, March 11th, 2009 - 33 comments

Yesterday Tane did an excellent post speculating on links between the Sensible Sentencing Trust and GEO Group. GEO Group derived from the notorious Wackenhut Corrections and it now wants to run privately run and publically funded prisons in NZ. In the US, the GEO Group supports organizations preaching almost exactly the messages as the SST […]

Private prisons and the ‘tough on crime’ lobby

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, March 10th, 2009 - 31 comments

One of the features of a privatised prison system is the potential for corruption of the political process by the commercial interests of private prison operators. Thanks to Tom in the comments it’s come to light that GEO Group, the company formerly known as Wackenhut and main contendor for National’s privatised prisons, has funded ‘tough […]

Institutional racism

Written By: - Date published: 4:20 pm, February 13th, 2009 - 110 comments

Bruce Emery’s sentence of just four years and three months on a reduced charge of manslaughter for chasing 15 year old Pihema Cameron 300 metres down the street and stabbing him to death with a knife is a stark reminder of the institutional racism that still exists in this country. Let’s not pretend for a […]

Garth McVicar

Written By: - Date published: 3:08 pm, December 2nd, 2008 - 68 comments

Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar’s analysis of prisons today: “Under our present prison policy the inmates are basically running the prison” Why does anyone take this man seriously?

ACT’s fifth Candidate?

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, September 18th, 2008 - 54 comments

The word around the traps is that ACT will be announcing the name of its mystery 5th list candidate at its Law and Order policy launch this weekend and it’s rumoured that the candidate will be David Garrett. Garrett is a Barrister and is also a legal advisor to the Sensible Sentencing Trust who drafted […]