22nd June 2018

At a recent meeting in Parliament, Justice Minister Andrew Little congratulated Sensible Sentencing Trust founder Garth McVicar for giving Victims’ a voice and for forcing the justice system to make Victims’ a prominent part of the process. But in public, on the TVNZ show “The Nation”, he calls Mr McVicar – and his colleagues in Sensible Sentencing – “nutters”.

“I have broad shoulders” says Garth McVicar “but this kind of deceit and double dealing really says much more about Mr Little than it says about me and the dedicated people I work with in Sensible Sentencing, and our associated Victims’ trust.”

“Hard on the heels of an embarrassing back-down on his desire to repeal Three Strikes Little now claims that at his upcoming Criminal Justice Summit he wants to have a ‘wide ranging debate’. But it is quite clear that we, the best known and largest privately funded Victims’ advocacy group in New Zealand won’t be invited.

We can confidently predict who will be there to tell the ideological Mr. Little what want he wants to hear.

At the top of the bill will be former Head of Prisons Kim Workman, who was forced to resign in 1993 after his pet project He Ara Hou proved to be a complete disaster, resulting in rampant corruption among officers, increased drug dealing, more escapes, and violence against other inmates. Twenty five years later, Mr Workman is still advocating ‘reforms’ which proved such a spectacular failure” McVicar said.

“Next the summit will hear from Victoria University criminologist John Pratt, whose basic thesis is that despite our homicide and violent crime rate being NINE times per capita what it once was, we are really still as safe in our streets and homes as we were in the 1960’s, when policemen only needed a truncheon and a whistle, instead of stab proof vests, pepper spray, and tasers. Not to mention the firearm in a locked box in every police car.”

“The summit will also hear from the Howard League for penal reform, who will tell the attendees that violent criminals are victims too, and that all or at least most of them are capable of rehabilitation. And this despite depressingly convincing evidence that once criminals finally get sent to prison – which takes about 10 crimes and prior Court appearance to achieve - they are probably not going to be rehabilitated.”

“The Summit won’t hear from speakers who have overwhelming evidence that all types of whanau are not in fact as good as any other, and that families in which two biological parents are married to each other – such as the vast majority of Pacific Island families – give children the very best shot of staying out of prison”

“So Mr. Little can call me a nutter for advocating what the vast majority of the public instinctively already know. I am happy to let the public make up their own minds” said McVicar. “In the meantime, we are working on an Alternative Justice Summit which will present the evidence and voices the public won’t hear at Mr Little’s talkfest”.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2018/06/everything-is-on-the-table-for-justice-reform-andrew-little.html

ENDS

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