It is rather weird that the three strikes law is a, ahem, hot topic right now.
It is being held out to be a panacea to the current crime wave the right claim we are suffering from.
A high profile killing of an Auckland dairy worker has sparked considerable anger.
National and Mark Mitchell in particular have chosen to fuel that anger by demanding that the three strikes law be returned. Even though initial indications are that the person who has been charged was extradited from Australia and may not actually be subject to the law if it was in force.
Mitchell has been reported as follows. From Morning Report:
He said National wanted to see “proper consequences” for offenders and was “fully focused” on changing the law around discounts.
“The public of New Zealand don’t feel like there is consequences. They don’t feel safe in their houses, they don’t feel like the judicial is working in their favour at all and it’s very rare we here about victims at all these days.”
The law has a somewhat disturbed background. Its primary proponent was someone who had been convicted of stealing a dead baby’s identity.
As I said previously the legislation was a sports slogan masquerading as a serious penal policy. Its genesis was the US of A where an informed considered approach to criminal justice is subservient to good old boy tough on crime toting politicians.
It basically has a list of offences where first time up a defendant will be given a warning, second time up an offender serves the imposed sentence without parole and third time up unless it would be manifestly unjust an offender has to serve the maximum sentence for the offence.
It is hard to comprehend how it could have a positive effect on offence levels. In fact the National Government was advised that the law change may result in more homicides.
It is not difficult to understand how this could work. The ones at risk of being subject to three strikes tend to be poorly educated and either very drunk or out of their head on something or they have the type of personality that means they respond very poorly to certain circumstances or they suffer from a mental condition. They do not have law degrees or coldly measure the consequences of their behaviour if they act in a certain way.
They are almost inevitably impulsive. They will not perform a deep analysis of the likely consequences, instead they will think along the following lines, “S*&t I’m going down but if I get away I might not get caught”. It is then quite conceivable that they will kill someone to get away.
The law had come up with some batshit crazy results like the case where a prisoner was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for pinching a female prison guard’s bum. Another person who suffered from long-standing and serious mental illness, who had been admitted at least 13 times to mental health facilities, and who suffered from schizophrenia and substance (drug and alcohol) abuse received the same sentence for an unwanted kiss on the cheek of a stranger.
This second case led the Supreme Court to decide that the sentence of seven years’ imprisonment went well beyond excessive punishment and would shock the conscience of properly informed New Zealanders, and was therefore so disproportionately severe as to breach the Bill of Rights. They also agreed that this right not to be subject to cruel or disproportionately severe punishment is not subject to the reasonable limits protection under the Act.
So suggestions of a return of the law is both an affront to the rule of law which National is meant to support and may actually increase the homicide rate. And it will not be a panacea.
You need long term reform to achieve this. Address poverty, improve housing standards, care for people’s health and give everyone a good education.
But these tough on crime slogans that by the looks of it do not actually apply to the offence in question do all of us a disservice.
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