Garrett To Workman: Prove It

David Garrett MP, ACT New Zealand

Monday, February 23 2009

ACT New Zealand Law & Order Spokesman David Garrett today disputed the accuracy of figures cited by 'Re-thinking Crime and Punishment' Director Kim Workman, and challenged him to front up with the statistics to prove his claims.

"Mr Workman claims that Corrections currently has 16,000 offenders on its books who have had three or more convictions for serious crimes since 1980. Yet answers to my written Parliamentary Questions for the same period provide a very different figure," Mr Garrett said.

"My figures show that since 1980 4,176 people were sentenced on three or more occasions for: sexual violation, murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, wounding with intent, injuring with intent, injuring by an unlawful act, aggravated wounding or injury, aggravated assault, assault with intent to injure, assault on a child or by a male on a female, cruelty to a child, using a firearm against a law enforcement officer, or commission of a crime while using a firearm. An unspecified number of those are currently in prison.

"Clearly there is a massive difference between my figures and Mr Workman's. As such, I would be very interested to find out about the additional 11,824 offenders that Mr Workman cited in his article yesterday.

"My figures are available to the public, and there is no denying their authenticity or accuracy. The same cannot be said for Mr Workman's information, however, and I challenge him to front up and open his claims to public scrutiny," Mr Garrett said.

ENDS

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