Crime in New Zealand - The Three Strikes Law

The Three Strikes Law

Dame Sian's concerns about the growing prison population did not stop former ACT MP David Garrett from championing the controversial 'three strikes' law which was implemented by The Sentencing and Parole Reform Act of 2010. Under this law, an offender receives a normal sentence and a warning for a first strike offence, a sentence without parole for a second, and the maximum sentence for the offence, without parole, for a third. By October 2011, 574 offenders had earned a first strike but only one had earned a second "strike" to his name. In 2012, a Waikato 20-year-old became the first New Zealander charged with a third strike offence for his part in an attack on a prison guard. He was in jail at the time, serving a three-year sentence for his second strike, the aggravated robbery of a Wellington man. He committed the robbery while on bail for his first strike offence, robbery with menaces. If found guilty of his latest charge, the young man faces the maximum 10 years in jail without the right to parole. Following this case, President of the Criminal Bar Association, Tony Bouchier, said offenders on their "third strike" had no incentive to plead guilty and could subject their alleged victims to a needless trial.

Professor Greg Newbold of Canterbury University believes that the three strikes law will have little if any effect on crime but will eventually lead to an increase in the prison population. In 2012 he said the impact will not fully be felt for some years, because most second strikers have not yet reached the end of their current sentences. Newbold also believes that the three strikes law will lead to an increase in prison violence. ``We will have clear cases of injustice with a resulting loss of credibility for the justice system; a lack of incentive for (prisoners to attend) programmes; a prison management nightmare and highly dangerous prisoners with absolutely nothing to lose who pose a serious threat to police and staff. We will see vastly increased security costs, a burgeoning prison population and no guarantee that any of this will have any effect whatsoever on the crime rate."