Kerre Woodham: We cannot let people get away with their crimes

Law and order was a major concern of voters going into the 2023 Election – to be fair, it's usually on the minds of voters going into any election campaign, but particularly the last one.  

Voters had had a guts full of doing things a different way. Of policing by consent, of giving authority to the gangs and then seeing them take over towns. We had guts full of seeing young kids ram raiding, of seeing neighbourhood crime increase. You saw numerous community Facebook pages showing kids as young as 10 being driven around by older people, breaking into homes, stealing what they could find. People were sick and tired of it, and they were sick and tired too of judges letting young punks walk away from their crimes and their responsibilities. They wanted the authorities to ensure consequences were in place when offenders broke the law.

The coalition partners may have their differences, when it comes to law and order though, National, Act, and New Zealand First were, and still are, singing from the same song sheet. They all wanted to go hard in direct contrast to Labour who wanted to and did empty the prisons. Under Labour, incarceration rates plummeted from 213 people per 100,000 in 2018, which is near the highest in the OECD to 149 per 100,000. Although victims of crime increased by 12%. So unfortunately, treating people kindly, nicely with compassion didn't seem to be working terribly well.  

Labour's reforms were part of an overall goal to reduce the prison population by 30% by 2033. In one area where it achieved success, it achieved that 10 years early. In the 23 campaign, then Prime Minister Chris Hipkins saw that the writing was on the wall and in a stark illustration of pragmatism over ideology, showing that power to him was more important than Labour's principles, he scrapped the target as part of the policy bonfire. But it was too little too late. Labour was voted out, the Coalition voted in, and now tougher sentencing laws have been passed by Parliament.  

The changes kept the discounts that judges can apply during sentencing to 40% – which still sounds an awful lot. It also scraps repeat discounts for youth and remorse and absolutely – that makes sense. How many times can you be bloody sorry? How many times can you say, oh, look, I'm sorry, I was only 16, I was only 17, I was only 18, I was only 19. I have absolutely no doubt that the dreadful upbringings that many of these offenders have contributes to the reasons why they offend, but how many times do you get to play that card? It is awful. It's unspeakable. It shouldn't happen. But you can't keep saying sorry and getting away with it and having it apply.  

There are three new aggravating factors: penalizing offenders who target sole charge workers, good, those who aid and abet young people, good, and those who live stream their crimes, double good. The changes also encourage longer sentences for people who offend on bail, in custody, or on parole, and implement a sliding scale for early guilty pleas, so an offender can only get a 5% discount if they change their plea to guilty during the trial.  

This is common sense that absolutely discourages bad behaviour. But as Julie-Anne Kincaid, the Law Association Vice President told Mike Hosking this morning, the changes are all very well and good, but we're running out of places to put the lawbreakers.  

“Our prisons are full. We have these new things coming into play, which are designed to make prison sentences longer and people to be imprisoned longer, as well as 3 strikes coming into play on the 17th of June this year. And these will lead to an increase in our prison population, which is already at breaking point.  

“It costs $150,000 about to keep a person in prison for a year in New Zealand. So that's 10 more people in jail for one year each is $1.5 million, a

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carrywood and Mornings podcast from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd be well, Laura and order was a major concern
of voters going into the twenty three election. To be fair,
it's usually on the minds of voters going into any
election campaign, but particularly the last one. Voters had had
a guts full of doing things a different way of
policing by consent, of giving authority to the gangs and

(00:34):
then seeing them take over towns. We had guts full
of seeing young kids ram rating, of seeing neighborhood crime increase.
We saw numerous community Facebook pages showing kids as young
as ten being driven around by older people, breaking into

(00:55):
home stealing what they could find. People were sick and
tired of it, and they were sick and tired too
of judges letting young punks walk away from their crimes
and their responsibilities. They wanted their authorities to ensure consequences
were in place when offenders broke the law. The coalition
partners may have their differences when it comes to law

(01:17):
in order, though National Act and New Zealand First were
and still are singing from the same song sheet. They
all wanted to go hard. In direct contrast, to Labour
who wanted to and did empty the prisons. Under Labour,
incarceration rates plummeted from two hundred and thirteen people per

(01:38):
one hundred thousand and twenty eighteen, which is near the
highest in the OECD, to one hundred and forty nine
per one hundred thousand, although victims of crime increased by
twelve percent, so unfortunately, treating people kindly, nicely, with compassion
didn't seem to be working terribly well. Labour's reforms were

(02:03):
part of an overall goal to reduce the prison population
by thirty percent by twenty thirty three. In one area
where it achieved success, it achieved that ten years early
in the twenty three campaign, then Prime Minister Chris Hipkins
saw that the writing was on the wall, and, in
a stark illustration of pragmatism over ideology, showing that power

(02:28):
to him was more important than Labour's principles, he scrapped
the target as part of the policy bonfire. But it
was too little, too late. Labor were voted out, the
Coalition voted in, and now tougher sentencing laws have been
passed by Parliament. The changes cap the discounts that judges

(02:51):
can apply during sentencing to forty percent, which still sounds
an awful lot. It also scraps repeat discounts for youth
and remorse, and absolutely that makes sense. How many times
can can you be bloody sorry? How many times can
you say, oh, look, I'm sorry. I was only sixteen,

(03:11):
I was only seventeen, I was only eighteen, I was
only nineteen. I have absolutely no doubt that the dreadful
upbringings that many of these offenders have contributes to the
reasons why they offend. But how many times do you
get to play that card? It is awful, it's unspeakable,
it shouldn't happen. But you can't keep saying sorry and

(03:38):
getting away with it and having it apply. There are
three new aggravating factors, penalizing offenders who target sole charge
workers good, those who aid and abet young people good,
and those who lives dream their crimes double good. The
changes also encourage longer sentences for people who offend on

(03:59):
bail and custody or on parole, and implement a sliding
scale for early guilty place so an offender can only
get a five percent discount if they change their pleate
to guilty during the trial. This all makes common sense.
This all absolutely discourages bad behavior. But as julian Enkincaid,

(04:22):
the Law Association Association Vice president, told Mike Coskin this morning,
the changes are all very well and good, but we're
running out of places to put the law breakers.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Our prisons are full. We have these new things coming
into play which are designed to make prison sentences longer
and people to be in prison longer, as well as
three strikes coming into play in the seventeenth of June
this year, and these will lead to an increase in
our prison population, which is already a breaking point. It
costs one hundred and fifty thousand dollars about to keep

(04:55):
a person in prison for a year in New Zealand,
so that's ten more people in jail for one year.
At each is one point five million, and that would pay.
I'm sure for a pilot of pediatric dot com to
come to New Zeelands.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
It absolutely would, that was Julien Kincaid, the Law Association
vice president.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
It would.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
There are so many ways we as taxpayers could spend
one hundred and fifty thousand. If I had one hundred
and fifty thousand k per person, I would love to
use that money to rehabilitate them, to rehabilitate, especially the
young punks, so they didn't cause any further harm and
pain prison. I think we can all agree. Isn't where

(05:38):
rehabilitation happens. That has to happen within the person themselves.
They decide all of a sudden they grow up. Age
seems to happen, and that's when offending stops. They fall
in love, they have children. They decide they don't want
the kids being brought to see dad or mum increasingly
and the prison, so they decide to grow up and

(06:01):
change their ways. They decide that they are worth more
and deserve more than being some dumb ass fall guy
for the gangs. But where is that rehabilitation going to happen?
Where are the rehabilitation programs that work? Can we all
sit around waiting for the muse to strike some young

(06:22):
punk because it seems to be an epiphany that they have.
This is not working, This is stupid. Doing the same
thing over and over again is dumb. I'm worth more.
I'm going to go out and have more. We can't
and we cannot let people get away with their crimes

(06:44):
because that really starts to rip the fabric of society,
not just strain it, but tear it. The people who
are doing good get increasingly furious, increasingly brassed off, increasingly intolerant,
and you can't blame them. How many times do you
see people walking out of the supermarket with the trolley's

(07:06):
loaded eigh when you have been agonizing over how much
you have to spend and trying to feed the family
with that. So they have to be punished. Ideally, they
don't commit the crime in the first place. You nip
it in the bud and that's where I guess the
social investment policies come in. But they take time. We're

(07:28):
just going to have to put up with overcrowded prisons
for a while because I don't know about you, but
after six years of attempts to do things differently, I
don't know how they thought that reducing the prison population

(07:48):
was suddenly going to make society safer. It didn't. I
want to see good old fashioned justice and retribution, little
bit of hell fire and brimstone for a couple of years,
no matter the cost. I'm okay with that.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
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