Sensible Sentencing Trust urges the Government to review sentencing discounts and sentence reductions for serious violent crime, saying the overuse of discounts will not reduce the risk of repeat offending.

SST National spokesperson Jess McVicar said “A recent reduction in the sentence of Nomad gang member Randall Clinton Waho because of his difficult childhood being ‘raised by the gang’ was an outrageous decision and one that will only put the safety of the community at further risk. He is a repeat violent offender who has no concept of the harm he causes.”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/123219763/nomads-figure-who-was-raised-by-the-gang-gets-prison-sentence-reduced?fbclid=IwAR1AaiDmdhbyHispDrx6ehR5PcGYlAZB6a0cbVetXntnK-zlDMbmS_w5Ko0

Jess said rewarding such behaviour will only encourage offenders to use the excuse rather than attempting to reduce harm.

“Our system needs to be reviewed for serious violent offending and instead of receiving discounts for such issues, the offender should spend that discounted time in rehabilitation or counselling for the issues they claim led to their offending.

The system is currently setting the offenders up to fail, but more importantly it is increasing the risk to victims and the community. We can almost guarantee Waho is not going to stop his offending or leave the gang because he was rewarded with a reduced sentence. Our system has become increasingly soft on serious violent offending and the rise in victimisations proves this.”

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