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Media Articles Blame Parliament, Not Judges

Blame Parliament, Not Judges

This was sent out for publication on the 14th January 2004 in Hawkes Bay Today

A farmer who shot at the vehicle carrying his four wheel motor bike and three thieves will appear in the Kaikohe Court this week to face charges of wounding one of the three criminals.

Hopefully the charges will be thrown out of court and Mr. McIntyre will receive a medal for refusing to allow some low life to invade his property and steal his possessions.

Unlike Mr. McIntyre who was lucky enough to be at home when he was invaded many New Zealanders returned home after the Christmas holidays and found they also had been victim of this criminal epidemic sweeping our country at present.

In the last year alone over 60,000 fellow Kiwis became victims of burglary and home invasion, over 1200 of our citizens were raped, 2138 sexually assaulted and 3000 grievously assaulted!!

The truly alarming thing about all this is that over 85% of those criminals are repeat offenders and are being recycled by a Court system that has simply become a "bulk discount recycling centre".

Is it any wonder that the Mayor of Wairoa has publicly expressed his frustration at the inadequacy of our Court's to show some courage and ensure that the situation that developed in Wairoa will never happen again?

While we all blame the Court's, the Judges or the Police the Sensible Sentencing Trust believe that our crime fighting representatives are simply scapegoats and are being manipulated, used and abused by Parliament.

Parliament is the highest Court in this country; Parliament is the only authority that can change legislation that has allowed this circus to develop.

Judges must now consider the criminal's personal, whanau and cultural background and are instructed to use the least restrictive penalty appropriate when considering sentence. With this warm fuzzie legislation that Parliament introduced in 2002 we will continue to see an escalation in criminal activity.

Thank goodness we have community leaders such as the Mayor of Wairoa, who has stated publicly that he will not allow the gangs to rule Wairoa and he will lobby Parliament for change.

It will be interesting to see how many other "Community Leaders" support Mr. Probert.