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Opinion piece by Garth McVicar
3 December 05
Sensible sentencing

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The Sensible Sentencing Trust was started in 2001 by a small group of New Zealanders who were extremely concerned at the break down in law and order, the gradual decay in society and the consequences on our wider community in general.

New Zealand currently has an offender centered legal system that gives all the “rights” to the criminal at the expense of the Victims. As our legal system has gradually become more Politically Correct, offender-orientated violent crime has escalated alarmingly. With many vested interest organizations and individuals now feeding off this gravy train, reversing the trend will take time, patience and novel thinking.

“Back to basics for the sake of our children” is the catch phrase of the Sensible Sentencing Trust. Most parents bring up their children using good old-fashioned common sense. They teach them to be accountable and responsible for their actions. But as our education and legal systems have gradually removed the principles of accountability and responsibility, and the PC movement has gained momentum, a general dumbing-down of society standards has resulted. We now accept a lesser standard of values, morals, ethics and individual behaviour than ever before. This treadmill now has a vigour and life of its own.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust decided to focus on the more horrific crimes and the consequences to the Victims. We wanted to expose the systemic failures of our education and legal systems, hoping this strategy might motivate New Zealanders to join our fight   

The Trust takes every opportunity to give victims the opportunity to use their experience in a positive manner to initiate law changes and ensure that other people are not subjected to the same failures within our legal system.

One example is the legal challenge to the parole system that is currently proceeding through the Courts. Many horrific murders and violent offences are committed by criminals who are on parole. William Bell was a classic example: he was on parole when he killed three innocent people and badly injured a fourth at the Mt. Wellington-Panmure RSA. Bell and many more like him have numerous previous convictions and yet the systemic failures within the Corrections/ Probation service are so bad that they are virtually letting ticking time-bombs loose on an unsuspecting community. The RSA breach of parole Court action is forcing the various departments to re-evaluate their procedures and systems, ensuring that safeguards are put in-place to reduce the likelihood of a similar occurrence.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust also utilizes the Select Committee process to bring politicians face-to-face with many of the Victims who have been treated so appallingly by our legal system. Giving MP’s the opportunity to have first hand experience of how badly our system treats Victims is bringing about gradual change.

The Trust is now the largest privately funded victim support and justice reform organization in New Zealand . The success of the Trust is dedicated to the very courageous Victims who have unselfishly shared their horrific experiences for the benefit of all New Zealanders.

To find out more about the Sensible Sentencing Trust and how to join the organization, please visit our web-site at www.sensiblesentencing.org.nz. 

Garth McVicar is the National Spokesperson for the Sensible Sentencing Trust.

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A slack (read careless) driver is assaulted, but instead of the assaultee being reprimanded (or heaven forbid given a medal), he is tried and executed by NZ media without trial. When he ends up in court, he has no chance of justice being served and gets five years hard labour. Numerous recent high profile murders have had a strong association with drugs - the sword-man, the South Auckland teller killings, the pizza shop murder in Howick, the murder of Mr Pigott in Waitara etc. Yet, a policeman nicks drugs from safe custody and effectively becomes a dealer, but gets community service! (I thought that was what cops were supposedly paid to do anyway?) Finally, a self confessed drug pusher gets caught in a country where it is NO secret what the penalty for this activity is, but is made into a hero, a martyr, by the NZ and Aussie press; while the authorities of this country is victimised for applying the well known laws of that region! My point? NZ has a love affair with drugs and the media will certainly only pay lip service to curb its use when it is expedient to do so, but will continue to brain wash the public that drugs are widely used and that it is actually quite OK to do so. Although I do not condone the provoked road rage assault on the truck driver, how do you weigh this severe sentence (for what is really a relatively average assault) against the sentences / public attitudes for drug related crime? The sentences should have been: The hammer man should have received the community service; The policeman gets the five years in jail; The drug mule/pusher got what was coming to him.

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