Nothing can take the place of persistence and SST has persistence in abundance

By Garth McVicar

I often get asked how we manage to keep up the passion, determination and commitment necessary to ensure that Sensible Sentencing continues to be a sensible, effective voice in what sometimes seems to be a crazy world of liberal ideologists who seem to blatantly ignore the failings of their past philosophies and theories.

A recent example of the ‘nuttiness’ that gets championed from time to time is a group of ideologists who are campaigning to raise the age of youth justice to 21! This group of liberals blatantly ignore the fact that at 16 a young person can legally have sex, give birth, drive and own a firearm, yet these liberals say they are not old enough to be held to account for criminal behaviour.

SAY-NO! - Please see the enclosed petition and articles from various political correspondents on this issue. Don’t just sign the petition and send it back – photocopy it and get as many signatures as possible.

Tour-of-Duty - Over the last twelve months I have travelled extensively around the country on a ‘Tour-of-Duty’ speaking at hundreds of functions, the turn out and support has been phenomenal and I would like to say a BIG thank you to all the SENSIBLE folk who made it possible  and welcomed me so warmly.

Justice for Moko - plea bargain debacle Our campaign and petition for a review of the plea bargain debacle has now been accepted by Parliament and is now before the Justice and Electoral Select Committee.  This campaign was initiated following the horrific death of Moko and the nationwide rallies on 27th June. While it is too early to know what the outcome will be we can say the campaign has gathered significant political support. Thank you to all our SENSIBLE supporters who helped make this happen.

Child Sex Offender Register - ‘thumbs-up’ Five years ago the Director of Human Rights instigated legal action against SST after we placed a child sex-offender [paedophile] on our offender data base, that case was the catalyst for a campaign for the Government to establish a Child Sex Offender Register. We are very pleased to be able to say that register is now operational and while it is not [as yet] publicly available it is a far cry from the days where paedophiles could hide behind name suppression and anonymity bestowed on them by the Courts. Thanks again to the thousands of SENSIBLE people who helped us achieve this.

Police numbers charade V Public Safety - It doesn’t seem to matter what Party is in power they seem at some stage to forget who put them there and try to shaft the voters. Police numbers and public safety are a classic example. National got elected by promising to get tough on crime and for their first two terms did a reasonable job implementing policies such as Three-Strikes and various other policies with a focus on public safety.

But as happens with all political parties the rot set in. The Government started tinkering with police numbers and funding and manipulating crime figures but they have recently been caught out. This has led to Labour announcing it will increase Police numbers by 1000 and New Zealand First pledging an extra 1800 if in a position to do so after the next election.

Persistence pays off -  Fights like the above are a common occurrence to us but in our drive for public safety our persistence is paying off and once again I would like to thank the thousands of SENSIBLE supporters who have made it possible.

Thank you and I wish you all the best for a safe and prosperous 2017. Garth

I want to thank your organisation for asking me to contribute to your newsletter.

Garth McVicar and I go back a long way, and he is a man I respect. 

We met recently at the Beehive where we had a good discussion over the current investigation into raising the youth justice age to 18. 

This was a recommendation of the independent expert panel which advised me on the current overhaul of care and protection. 

I announced in April that Cabinet had asked me and Justice Minister Amy Adams to look at this and we will report back to Cabinet soon. 

There is certainly no suggestion that 17 year olds who carry out very serious crimes would be dealt with in the youth court. They would automatically go to the adult court.

But could 17 year olds who are charged with less serious crimes be dealt with differently, to reduce the harm caused by crime and with it the economic cost of crime?

We know that once many of these young people go to an adult prison and associate with hardened criminals and gang members the chances of them reoffending and creating more victims increases. 

The Youth Court offers an opportunity to break the cycle of reoffending but is by no means an easy option.

Young people are still held to account. Adult sentences are still an option. 

Alongside the accountability the Youth Court can provide rehabilitation and wraparound services to address the drivers of crime in a young person’s life so that they don’t continue to commit crime for years to come. And if they are not committing crimes then that means they are not creating victims.

The government has been firmly focused on reducing youth reoffending. 

The youth justice system has worked hard to reduce youth crime by 33 per cent in the past five years.  We need to keep looking at ways to reduce this number even further, because that will mean fewer victims.

We have heard many times over the claim that our youth justice system is ‘world class and highly effective’.  The actual reality of it all is that our youth justice system is demonstrably failing.  

Here are just some of the undeniable facts that shine some much needed light on the failing system:

1. There is a 68% reoffending rate for those who go through the youth justice system.
2. 75% of all young offenders are not prosecuted for their crimes and do not step foot in a court.
3. 30% of those young offenders who are given diversion have previously offended three or more times already. 
4. 80% of all youth court orders are ‘Family Group Conference Plans’ – they are told to go on a tramp and write a letter.
5. Of the 17,000 proceedings for young offenders last year just 26 cases were deemed ‘serious enough’ to be transferred for sentencing in district court. A third of those cases are simply dismissed.
6. By the time a young offender gets a Supervision Order it’s too little too late.  By then they will have an 80-90% reoffending rate.
7. 75% of all front-line police and 55% of youth aid officers do not want an increase to the youth justice age.  The main reason they give - lack of accountability. 
8. Just under half of all current adult prisoners have had a previous proceeding in the youth justice system.  If the youth justice system worked then we wouldn’t have just needed to spend $1billion on new prison beds.

Clearly there is a need to be flexible for first time young offenders who make those stupid mistakes.  But there must be accountability for those who continue to flip the bird at the police, the courts and the community.  

People use UNCROC as a main reason to extend the age limit (which by the way New Zealand signed with reservations specifically around our youth justice system), but the reality is we cannot in good conscience extend a demonstrably failing system before we fix it first.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi is the founding document of our modern nation reflecting the partnership between Māori as tāngata whenua and the Crown. The government in exercising its kāwanatanga or governance has an obligation to also honour and support the partnership and ensure that Māori retain rangatiratanga or self-determination. 

The Māori Party advocates for a restorative justice system based on Te Tiriti o Waitangi which is whānau-centred and free of discrimination. 

We aim to:

• Review the entire Justice System to ensure it is aligned with tikanga Māori and a focus on eliminating institutional racism
• Introduce Whānau Facilitators to ensure whānau are informed and are able to discuss all their choices and the consequences (legal and non-legal) in any court system.

The Māori Party believes in a justice system that works with whānau to solve problems. We absolutely support the call to raise the Youth Age Court as we know too well Māori representation particularly amongst Rangatahi is high. We also see a high proportion of these rangatahi displaying a variety of learning difficulties and differences. Our approaches are holistic and we believe that the future of our families lies in our hands – that’s Whānau Ora. 

Media contact: Erena Richards 021 859 773