Today’s release of appalling results on a crime recidivism study confirms the brilliance of Justice Minister Phil Goff’s political management says ACT Justice spokesman Stephen Franks

“Such figures should be turning crime into New Zealand’s most pressing political problem. But by being proactive he keeps us all on Prozac.

“Our crime risks are a catastrophe. We are now more than two times as likely to be victims of serious crime as US citizens. The sexual violence risk is over 3 times that for US citizens, burglary 2.,2 times and for car thefts 1.6 times. These figures do not reflect the just announced 15% further drop in US crime rates. Only for murder is the US worse and this is concentrated in drug ridden ghetto areas.

“On Wednesday Mr Goff told a Select Committee he doubted these adverse comparisons but could not deny them faced with UK Home Office and Dutch Government international comparative results.

“Our prison population could overtake the US rate within the decade.

“The political fire alarm should be ringing because our rates are worsening. Journalists should interrupt Mr Goff’s torrent of soothing words to ask what will be changed given evidence in the budget that there is no intention or resource to shift from our failed offender-focused 30-year criminal justice experiment.

“Our youth crime and serious crime will not shift simply by the sentencing “reform” package promises to jack up headline imprisonment. Instead entry-level criminals should face the certainty that the law will mean what it says. Apprentice criminals can be confident that statistically crime does pay in New Zealand. Mr Goff’s reforms will not even measure let alone stop the blatant lack of compliance with the non-custodial (community) sentences. Family Group Conference plans for youth justice are ignored and the message to the criminal is that the law doesn’t mean what it says.

“The good thing is this can be reversed as the US has shown, when the politicians get the will to do rather than just say, and young criminals realise things have changed,” Stephen Franks said.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>