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Leader's LetterMarch 2004
Fixing Law & OrderIN THE 2002 election New Zealand First promised to focus on fixing the law and order problem and making a safer environment for our citizens. Since then, I have pursued the Government seeking to highlight the weaknesses in Labour’s soft law and order policies and I am happy to report that we are winning. Take home detention for example. Home detention was originally put in place to allow non-violent offenders to be confined at a lower cost to the taxpayer. Regretfully, investigation by New Zealand First discovered that far from being given to non-threatening offenders, a new type of home “detention” called “Back End Home Detention” was increasingly being given to killers, rapists and child abusers. We also discovered that the monitoring of home detainees was slack, that unbeknown to the public, offenders were enjoying large amounts of time out and about in the community and that some were involved in criminal activities whilst on home detention. The Government at first tried to deny our claims, saying that serious and violent offenders were “not” being given home detention. So we highlighted actual cases. The case of the person who was baking “P” and who died of a “P” overdose, a man who raped and sodomised three little girls whilst on home detention and another who beat the woman who had sponsored him so badly he had to resuscitate her and then call an ambulance. I can now tell you that the Government has, as a result of our pressure, finally begun to accept our criticism and has stated that it will tighten up on monitoring. It will appoint more probation staff, it will seek to remove or restrict the use of “Back End” home detention and that the eligibility of offenders for home detention will be reviewed. Then there is the nonsense of deferred sentences. Here we found that offenders, who are caught, tried, convicted and sentenced to jail with the right to apply for home detention, are having their jail sentences deferred and are being released back into the community whilst their applications for home detention are being heard. New Zealand First highlighted the absurdity of this sentencing law by exposing two cases, one of which involved a man who had been sentenced to jail for robbery but who was released on a deferred sentence to allow him to apply for “home detention”. Within weeks he was identified by his DNA as being responsible for three other aggravated robberies and of course surprise, surprise, when the police went to his house to arrest him on these new charges, they found he had long since flown the coop. The good news is that the Government has finally admitted that the Sentencing Act needs fixing and they have assured New Zealand First that they will be amending the Act to remove deferred sentencing, as we said they should. But wait there’s more. New Zealand First has also attacked the Government on the ridiculously high number of outstanding fines and infringements, something that is being exacerbated by the police “quota ticketing” policy. This is a very serious issue because the non-payment of court fines undermines the integrity of the judicial process and results in people like boy racers showing absolute contempt for the law. At its height we found that there was some $450 million in fines outstanding. Well, the response has been quite amazing. Not only do we now have Minister Barker rolling out “name shame” and “confiscated car club” campaigns to catch these defaulters but now the Government has produced the “Courts and Criminal Matters Bill” to the select committee which aims at affording the courts greater powers to collect outstanding fines, including measures to catch offenders at the border. Law and Order! Can we fix it? Yes we can, and yes we are! Ron Mark MP
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