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Submission to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee on the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill

(Date : 1st February 2005)

INTRODUCTION

       Submission on behalf of the Sensible Sentencing Trust:

1.1     The Sensible Sentencing Trust request to be heard in support of this submission.

1.2     The address for correspondence in relation to this submission is as follows:

Garth McVicar
Sensible Sentencing Trust
P O Box 701
Napier

Phone: Office; 06 8355 521,
Mobile; 025 2487 919

Submission :

The current situation :
The existing predicament the Govt. now finds itself in has been reached due to the negligence of past and present Governments; the willingness to sign various international agreements without due consideration of the likely consequences has placed this country in an extremely precarious position. At some stage in the not too distant future New Zealand’s dirty laundry will be publicly displayed for the World to see.

Existing politicians may not be to blame but they have the responsibility to rectify the problem.

The situation the Government now finds itself in must be dealt with in the fairest possible way for all concerned, this will involve short and long term remedies.

A)     Short Term :

We agree with the Minister that the average New Zealander finds it absolutely repugnant that a criminal can receive a financial windfall as a direct or indirect consequence of their criminal activities. We agree with the general thrust of the proposed Legislation but suggest a number of amendments.

1. Victim Trust Fund : Victims do not generally want the money but definitely do not want the criminals getting a financial windfall. We suggest any future compensation payments be placed in a general “Victim Trust Fund” to be used for future Victim related issues.
2. Intimidation : The fear of intimidation is very real for many Victims; we suggest they should be able to nominate an organization of their choice to represent them.
3. Pits Victim against Victim: : The proposed Bill has the potential to put all Victims in categories; “eligible” and “not eligible” based solely on the behaviour of their particular offender!!!!
4. Legal Aid : Any organization representing these Victims should be entitled to Legal Aid.
5. Victims who pre-date this Bill : A number of Victims will be penalized by the fact that this Bill is not retrospective, we suggest that those Victims be eligible for Legal aid and be able to nominate and organization to take legal action on their behalf.

B)     Long Term:

The Problem :

The existing prison system is a dismal failure in a number of areas including: safety of staff and rehabilitation of inmates.

Under our existing prison system there is no incentive for anyone, inmates or staff to reduce the level of offending.

The Solution:

1. Super Prison
   The Sensible Sentencing Trust believe it is time to build one new large capacity “Super” prison in the central North Island. The new “Super” prison should be privately run with the contractor being paid an incentive bonus for every offender who does NOT re-offend.
2. Consequences not Rehabilitation
   New Zealand should introduce a policy of “consequences” for every crime, instead of persisting with the failed experiment of rehabilitation. Not only will this idea reduce the level of offending it will save millions of dollars annually.

On behalf of many of the Victims who have approached the Sensible Sentencing Trust in relation to the compensation to criminals we look forward to expanding on the “Prisoners’ and Victims” Claims Bill”.

As previously stated we wish to present our submission to the Select Committee in person.

Other submissions were made as follows;
From Tai Hobson, husband of Mary Hobson, murdered at the Panmure RSA.
From Ida Hawkins, mother of Colleen Burrows, murdered in cold blood by Sam Te Hei in 1987.
From Darren Comrie, son of Ian Comrie, murdered by Michael Manihera without provocation in 1997.
From Peter Jenkins, nothing special, just incensed at the injustice to victims