NZ Three Strikes Law will hit Maori HARDEST
Metiria Turei, Green Party leader told Waatea News last week that “the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill will further embed discrimination in the justice system against Maori.”
“This Government is not interested in what is fair or what is just. They’re not genuinely interested in Maori issues as we saw with what John Key did to Tuhoe. They’re trying to present a nice face but it’s crumbling and we’re starting to see the real National Party, their real attitudes to Maori in particular come through,” Ms Turei says.
Maori already are more likely to be arrested and face longer sentences than non-Maori for similar crimes, so they are likely to run out of strikes much faster.
Under New Zealand’s new three strikes law, once an offender is convicted of a third serious offence the judge will have to impose the maximum sentence for the crime. The offender will not be eligible for parole while serving time for their third offence.
The law, which National and Act have agreed to pass, opens the way for huge inconsistencies in sentencing. Although ACT’s Rodney Hide suggests that our law is unlike the California three strikes law, it is clear that we are similarly unprepared for the “unintended consequences” of this law. For example, more Californians are serving life sentences under the 3 strike law for drug possession then for second-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon and rape… combined.
So the argument is that the 3 strikes regime set out in the National – Act bill is not the same as in California, but it does lead us down the same path, pretending that tougher and longer sentences will make us safer, despite all the evidence that the outcomes from such regimes are always that inmates, prison officers, police and the public will be less safe if this goes ahead.
In essence what it does is take away the judicial discretion and replaces it with a system that simply doesn’t work. Other options could include lengthening sentences for violent crime giving judges more room to extend punishment instead of creating a system which is unable to take into account unique circumstances.
So it’s not surprising that the Corrections Association and the Maori Party are opposed to this bill.
Source: TangataWhenua.com
For more information of the Californian law, see this post.
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