Panel named to review criminal justice system
The Government has announced its latest plan to fix the criminal justice system – another advisory expert group and a summit.
It follows a backdown on promises to scrap the contentious ‘‘three strikes’’ law as the Government grapples with an explosion in the prison population.
The Government has faced criticism for outsourcing policy development to reviews and working groups.
But Justice Minister Andrew Little says that it is crucial to have a public debate about the underlying issues leading to crime.
Former National MP and courts minister Chester Borrows will head the new criminal justice reform advisory group. He is also an former police officer and lawyer.
Ex-Sensible Sentencing Trust representative Ruth Money, gang expert Jarrod Gilbert and JustSpeak’s Julia Whaipooti will join the panel.
Also offering advice are Warren Young, Tony Ward, Tracey McIntosh and Carwyn Jones. They will report back with recommendations early next year.
Little also announced a summit will be held in Wellington next month on what is happening in courts and prisons now. The reoffending rate within two years of release from prison is 60 per cent.
‘‘In my view, that is a failure,’’ Little said. ‘‘We get the language of tough on crime and soft on crime, we get a media reversion to ‘how many rapists and murderers are you going to let out?’
‘‘That’s all nonsense stuff. That’s not what criminal justice reform is about.’’
Little said three decades of policy debate had focused on longer sentences without addressing underlying social problems.
‘‘What we want of a criminal justice system is a response to offending that stops offending to the best extent possible. That reduces re-offending because that’s what keeps us all safe and that’s got to be the ultimate objective,’’ he added.
‘‘What we are doing at the moment simply isn’t good enough.’’
Little met recently with the family of North Shore teenager Christie Marceau, whose death saw a tightening of bail laws under the previous Government.
That decision has seen a stream of people imprisoned on remand, choking the prison system but Little has not committed to relaxing this legislation.
‘‘For a family like the Marceau family, who have had that tragedy inflicted on them, to then feel they don’t have a voice in the system that is totally wrong. We’ll bring that voice very strongly to our process,’’ he said.
Borrows said he had opposed those changes behind closed doors while a minister and he now wanted ‘‘smart’’ and ‘‘clear’’ thinking.
Little was recently forced to dump a plan to repeal the ‘‘three strikes’’ sentencing law after opposition from NZ First. The 2010 law established increasing penalties for repeat violent offenders.
Little said Winston Peters’ party was open to change. ‘‘They want to see something smarter than what we are doing at the moment.’’