No one would get a third strike!

The Herald reports that as currently defined, none of the 423 prisoners serving a life sentence would have reached their third before the offence that got them a life sentence.

The reason for is the merger of National's two strikes policy and ACT's three strikes policy.

ACT's original three strikes policy had a large number of violent or sexual offences as qualifying for a strike.

National's two strikes policy defines a strike more narrowly – you have to have been actually sentenced to a prison term of five or more years for it to count as a strike. So ACT's third strike of life with 25 years no parole would only occur if someone had on three seperate occassions been given a prison sentence of at least five years.

I doubt National will want to water down the definition of what counts as a strike – you then relatively minor offenders getting caught up in it.

My preferred policy remains a modified form of three strikes – using National's definition of a strike being a sentence of at least five years:

  1. Normal sentence, normal parole (at 2/3rds)
  2. Normal sentence, no parole
  3. Maximum sentence for offence, no parole

Comments (66)

Login to comment or vote

Add a Comment