Ex-cop joins new justice lobby group
A new justice group has been founded by a defector from New Zealand’s best known victims’ rights organisation and a former top cop who quit her post despite being cleared of any wrongdoing connected to her relationship with a school boy.
Transforming Justice Foundation (TJF) is a non-profit organisation founded by exsensible Sentencing Trust representative Scott Guthrie and Tania Baron, the former Southern police inspector who left her post in April.
After 20 years in the force, Baron resigned despite her relationship with a then 17-year-old boy being investigated by police and her being cleared of any fault.
Baron had notified police of the relationship and was stood down while police completed an inquiry but she was later reinstated. According to TJF’S website, she now works as a counsellor for the Otago Automobile Association.
In Guthrie’s case, he was a spokesman for the Sensible Sentencing Trust (SST) until May this year.
His business affairs as a director of two failed courier firms in Feilding made headlines in 2016. He has previously been declared bankrupt twice but is now discharged.
Guthrie said TJF was focused on advocating for better intervention and rehabilitation in an effort to tackle the country’s high imprisonment and recidivism rates.
The TJF’S website said the goal of the group was to lobby government to create an ‘‘appropriately balanced but fair judicial system with a strong focus on rehabilitation and re-integration’’.
It also opposed ‘‘inappropriate sentencing’’ which failed to take into account victims or the most appropriate course of rehabilitation and was against the ‘‘three strikes’’ law.
Guthrie, who is based in Manawatu¯ , said the ballooning prison population and the high recidivism rate were signs the justice system was not working.
‘‘We’ve just had a gutsful of people getting out of the prison system and they’re back in within six months.’’