Christopher Luxon cracked down on crime during his speech to the 87th National Party conference last week.
He made “no apology for being tough on law and order” and added: “This Government obviously isn’t putting the public’s safety first, but a National government will”.
Petty jibes aside, it’s thescaremongering nature of the sentiment that went down like a cup of cold sick. To be fair, he promised there would be more support for victims and a focus on prisoners’ rehabilitation. But then there was the rest.
He said the National Government would “restore law and order” to ensure the justice system holds offenders accountable through tougher sentences.
“Sentences are a punishment, a deterrent, and they show the public that justice is being done,” he said.
It would mean limiting judicial sentencing powers by imposing a new 40 percent limit - I’m sure the judiciary was delighted to hear this, notwithstanding the constitutional threat to the separation of powers.
On top of scrapping the prisoner reduction target, Luxon promised to reinstate the “Three-Strikes” law, remove taxpayer funding for cultural reports, and to tackle youth crime too. Hell.
“Under National, people who choose to commit crimes will learn that there are consequences,” he said.
Youth would receive a reduced sentence for their youth, and for remorse, only once. Thereafter, the ship had sailed, he said.
Violent crime had increased by 33 percent, retail crime had doubled (since when?), and gangs were growing faster than police, he said.
Christopher Luxon, flanked by police spokesman Mark Mitchell, left, and justice spokesman Paul Goldsmith, after the National Party annual conference last Sunday. Photo / Mark Mitchell, NZ Herald
On top of the anecdotal evidence of a “young teacher”, “nurse” and others, the use of a 19-year-old who received a 60 percent sentence for violent crime was used for dramatic effect.
Without wanting to minimise the damage caused by this 19 year-old, it brings to light issues around crime, how it’s framed, and what’s factually correct.
I was fortunate to attend the 150th anniversary of law at Otago University earlier this year. It was there Parole Board chair, Sir Ron Young, shared some statistics that may prove informative for the public.
Prison rates fact check
The prison population in 1960 was about 2000, but rose to 6000 by the turn of the century.
In 2018, there were more than 10,000 prisoners and it has varied between 7300 and 8000 in the last few years. Sixty percent of those had been sentenced, and 40 percent were in remand.
Remand statistics have been hugely impacted by trial delays, which have increased over the years, he said.
The increase in sentences over the last 30 years was driven by violent, sex, and methamphetamine crimes. Collectively, they accounted for 84 percent of the growth in prisoners between 1980 and 2018.
Murder sentences were traditionally short, with a lot of people being released after 10 years. Today, those people were serving longer minimum periods, he said.
Women make up 5 to 7 per cent of the prison population, with men making up 93 to 95 percent. These figures haven’t really changed in the last 40-50 years, he said.
Prison population demographics
There were 100 Pasifika people in prison in 1980 (four percent of the total), which increased to 910 by 2020. Māori made up about 25 to 31 percent of the prison population in 1960, and fewer than 1000 prisoners.
That number increased to 5500 in 2018 and was at 4100 last year.
Māori offending had gone down, but they were still six times more likely than non-Māori to be in prison, Young said.
Gang involvement, time spent on remand, unconscious bias and poor treatment by correctional facility officers played a significant role in perpetuating those appalling disparities, he said.
What’s more, 37 percent of Māori were serving full sentences, compared to 27 percent of non-Māori.
Older aged groups were spending between 30 and 35 years in prison, with a number of those being in their 70s and 80s.
Young people
Today, there are fewer young people in prison.
In 1980, 29 percent of the prison population was under 20 years of age. In 2022, this was just one percent. Those between 20 and 24 made up 35 percent of the prison population in 1980 and that has reduced to nine percent. So 10 percent of the prison population were under the age of 25 in 2022.
“This idea that there are these huge numbers of young people doing ghastly things in the community isn’t matched by the facts,” Young said.
“I think the Youth Court can really take credit for a lot of what’s happened. Prisons are seen as a last resort for young people and you have to say we’re seeing better behaviour among young people.”
There have also been problems associated with a lack of commitment to rehabilitation, he said.
In his experience Young had seen young Māori men with a five-year sentence and living in complete isolation. They had no phone numbers on their call list, no visitors, no calls, and no connections, he said.
With 32 percent of prisoners being gang affiliated, unsurprisingly, they were being sucked into gangs for protection, he said.
What does this information tell you? On the one hand it’s such a shame that Luxon failed to address the vast issues currently plaguing the justice system - be it inequities, prison staff treatment of prisoners, legal aid, court delays, and draconian murder sentences for those under 18, for example.
On the other hand, it wasn’t too long ago when former prime minister Bill English said prisons were a moral and fiscal failure. Perhaps it’s a case of one bad egg.
