Little: Three strikes law to be axed

The controversial ‘‘three strikes’’ law will be repealed next year, Justice and Courts Minister Andrew Little says.

Little said the law, which mandates escalating punishments for repeat violent or sexual offenders, had not reduced crime rates and failed to act as an effective deterrent. ‘‘It’s been eight years since this got onto the statute books and it’s not making a blind bit of difference. It’s time to find something new, something different.’’

Little said he doubted offenders would consider their potential sentences before committing crimes so the law did not address the root of the problem. ‘‘Criminals don’t go around calculating what might happen as a consequence.’’

A replacement to the law had not yet been discussed, Little said, but he stood by the Labour Party’s promise to put more police officers on the streets and to support community programmes to ‘‘get on top of problems before they even become a problem’’.

Officially called the Sentencing and Parole Reform Act 2010, the three strikes law prohibits parole for offenders facing their second strike, and imposes the maximum sentence of imprisonment without parole for third strike offences unless the court considers it would be manifestly unjust.

Forty offences – including murder, manslaughter, sexual violation, abduction, kidnapping and aggravated robbery – count as a strike under the law, pursued by the Act Party in 2010.

Act leader David Seymour said Little had created the ‘‘evilest clean slate law’’ and was effectively telling nearly 9000 offenders they could commit more crimes without facing longer sentences.

‘‘Three strikes is a young policy. Only one offender has committed enough crimes in the past seven years to earn a third strike,’’ he said. ‘‘Little must front to the victims and their families of those strikers he’s letting off. [He] must explain why he is putting the rights of criminals ahead of the rights of victims.’’

Seymour claimed early evidence found the policy was reducing offending.

The latest Ministry of Justice figures to July 2017 showed 8503 offenders were on a first warning and 216 were on a final warning. Two people – Raven Casey Campbell and Kingi Ratima – have been convicted of a third strike. Both had their sentence’s mitigated.

Little said judges were avoiding enforcing the law.

After convictions for robbery and aggravated robbery, Campbell was the first to receive three strikes and was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for pinching a woman’s bottom. The crime was indecent assault.

At Campbell’s trial in 2007, Justice Kit Toogood said it would be ‘‘grossly disproportionate’’ to sentence the then-25-yearold without parole as it would discourage him from getting help. The judge granted Campbell parole eligibility after serving one third of his sentence.

Ratima, who was jailed in March for robbery and has over 100 previous convictions, will be eligible for parole after serving half of his 10-year sentence.

‘‘Little must front to the victims and their families of those strikers he’s letting off. [He] must explain why he is putting the rights of criminals ahead of the rights of victims.’’ Act leader David Seymour