Labour are currently considering a repeal of three strikes laws. Garth McVicar and National are up in arms. No surprises there, they have been trading on misinformed slogans like three strikes for years. This particular slogan was imported, a symbol of our mindless mimicking of American prison policy. The importers
Liam Martin: Three strikes - prison policy by baseball slogan
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The United States keeps 2.3 million people behind bars. Photo / Getty Images
American criminal justice is brutally racist. The country imprisons a higher proportion of its black population than South Africa at the height of apartheid. One third of all black men will spend time in prison during their lifetime. Whole black communities are excluded from work and housing through criminal records for low level drug offences, creating a racial caste system with eerie resemblance to pre-civil rights segregation.
The American prison boom thrives on a politics of vote grabbing by misinformation and appeals to the worst aspects of human nature. The Donald Trump approach of immigrant blaming and wall building. The attitude of punish harshly no matter the cost or whether it will even work. The politics of criminal justice by baseball slogan.
The National Party are embracing the same cynical rhetoric. Simon Bridges takes every opportunity to parrot the tough on crime catchphrases of American mass imprisonment, and says if re-elected, he will reinstate three strikes and retroactively punish anyone missed in the meantime.
Labour are advancing a genuine alternative for the first time in three decades. They have promised to reduce the prison population 30 percent. But the reform agenda is fragile. They did not build the mega-prison at Waikeria, but the major justice initiatives in their first budget were more police and expanded prison capacity. Some say Labour is using the three strikes repeal to test public appetite for change, and the response will guide whether they take on the bigger challenges of bail and parole reform.
It is a fitting test case, a classic example of our long-term tendency to mindlessly copy failed American prison policy. Let's treat it accordingly. Scrapping three strikes would be a perfect way to begin a meaningful search for home grown alternatives.
Dr Liam Martin is a criminologist at Victoria University in Wellington who specialises in researching large-scale incarceration.