The first prison population drop in 70 years
October 8th, 2011 at 11:00 am by David FarrarClio Francis at Stuff reports:
For the first time since the Depression, the prison population has shown a sustained drop – and is on track to tumble further.
In the past decade the prison population grew by 45.6 per cent – but the latest annual Justice Sector Forecast predicts that in the next 10 years it will fall by 6.2 per cent.
The decrease is being attributed to a falling crime rate and to new police tactics that have seen fewer people brought before the courts.
Corrections Department spokesman Brendan Anstiss said: “There are ups and down in the forecast each year and each month, but in modern history this is the first sustained drop.
So long as serious and repeat offenders are jailed, to keep the community safe, I’m all for having fewer people in prison.
Corrections Minister Judith Collins said the falling crime and prison population rates were a “dramatic drop”.
“The people who should be in prison are in prison, but we don’t want low-level offenders in prison if there is a better way of dealing with them. It’s a very expensive option and we know that the younger they are when they end up in prison the more likely they are to stay there for a very long time.
It will be great if the three strikes law actually leads to less people in prison, because of a deterrence effect.
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October 8th, 2011 at 11:06 am
As has been pointed out by me in GD, and by others elsewhere, this is a National Party plant swallowed hook line and sinker by the Press.
Where is the evidence of a sustained drop? There isn’t any. All we have is a prediction of a very small drop over 10 years!
Show me the evidence!
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:07 am
DPF, you got caught by the headline. Please read Lindsay:
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:09 am
It would be good, but unfortunately we live in the real word, where all the empirical evidence shows that three-strikes legislation does the opposite of what it is intended to achieve
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:13 am
MNIJ – No boy racers have had cars crushed, only one person is on strike. Increased police numbers and team policing are having a dramatic effect with police getting to trouble quick enough to stop it escalating into serious assaults and deaths. Sounds to me like the legislation and policies of the National-Act arm of the Government have had the desired prevention/deterrence effect on crime.
And you wonder why there are predictions of lower prison populations?
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:18 am
where all the empirical evidence shows that three-strikes legislation does the opposite of what it is intended to achieve
Really? It doesn’t seem a flawed concept in that it gels with certain aspects of human nature. If it doesn’t work, perhaps that’s because its been poorly designed and/or executed. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen here.
I wonder why, when people do end up in prison, we don’t take the opportunity of the captive audience and force them to get educated. Do nothing but, all day, and require them to pass exams lest they don’t become eligible for parole.
Seems to me we’re happy to force them to stop smoking, why not force them to get educated as well?
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Mighty_Kites (8) Says: October 8th, 2011 at 11:09 am “….unfortunately we live in the real word, where all the empirical evidence shows that three-strikes legislation does the opposite of what it is intended to achieve…”
How do you work that out? One key facet of the three strikes legislation is that recidivist offenders simply cannot re-offend because they are still locked up! Rather than be “the opposite of what it is intended to achieve” it is exactly what is intended – to keep these criminals off the street.
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:32 am
Mighty_Kites: three-strikes legislation does the opposite of what it is intended to achieve
Ah, so people commit more crimes so they can go longer to jail? Yeah right.
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:33 am
“new police tactics that have seen fewer people brought before the courts.”
What are these tactics they speak of?
Seems like they’re just giving more people home detention and excusing some other offenses. The country sure as hell doesn’t feel safer.
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:33 am
I reckon the fear of no tobacco is the real deterrent, if, indeed deterrence really works for people who’s standard behavioural response pattern is to act impulsively. Alas, criminals are overwhelmingly thick.
Nothing speaks louder than the threatened deprivation of an addictive substance.
Shouldn’t let kids out of school till they’re educated IMO. Gives ‘em an incentive to learn, rather than just marking time.
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:35 am
It would be nice if this were true. Sadly corrections remains the second largest government department and will probably soon become the largest…
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:44 am
What a truly inane article and I wonder why National are needing to put this sort of bullshit out.
The new police tactics translate as ” doing fuck all”, we have just seen the demise of the second most blatantly pro labour Commissioner of Police. Hopefully Peter Marshall will restore independence to the NZ Police.
The labour government made it just about impossible to be sentenced to prison. One of our the lawyers here will be able to say exactly how many layers of sentencing have to be used before prison is an option, I think its about 5.
Our legal freinds will also be able to confirm that when the prisons are full, a quite word is put out to the Judges and presto prison sentences drop off for a while.
William Bell was a low level offender, he managed to low level 168 times before he slaughtered several people.
3 Strikes as a deterrent- Tui billbord – I’m pissed,stoned and selfish, I won’t rob this dairy because of something a politician drew up………..please.
Most crime is low level, very few people are murdered or suffer unprovoked assault, many are burgled and have their car stolen and this occurs over and over, these are the offenders that really disrupt communities and these are the ones who are repeatidly bailed and given community based sentences where they are free to prey again an again
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:45 am
The longer they are in prison, the slower their breeding rate.
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:51 am
Most crime is low level, very few people are murdered or suffer unprovoked assault, many are burgled and have their car stolen and this occurs over and over, these are the offenders that really disrupt communities and these are the ones who are repeatidly bailed and given community based sentences where they are free to prey again an again
Agree Paul. The obvious corollary to 3-strikes is broken windows and I just fucking wish someone in National would suggest implementing that as a priority next term.
I frankly don’t understand why they haven’t done it already. It is an obvious latent popularity sitter: i.e. voters don’t know they want it but they will want it when someone starts explaining it.
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 11:59 am
One Judge (besides the Chief Justice) who is determined to keep the prison populace low http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/5741412/One-for-the-Maoris-basher-let-off
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
The more these sorts of attacks are published, the sooner the perverse myth that “only whites commit race hate crime” is put to bed.
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Pauleast: No, you are probably right, 3S probably wont deter that kind of offender…but it WILL prevent him reoffending in that way more than thrice…The first two second strikers are an aggravated robber who committed another agg robb (which earned him strike two) while on bail awaiting sentence for the first, and another agg robber who said he committed the strike two crime to go back to jail. He got his wish.
If ALL 3S does is take out guys like that, it will have achieved its purpose…but you are an ex cop…you must know that many crims are smarter than the dumb oxen they are made out to be…not smart enough to evade arrest perhaps, but smart enough to understand cause and effect…but I waste my time; you dont like it, and no amount of rational argument will shift you…
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
15 years after leaded petrol was phased out.
If the stats and theory are correct, we should see more of a decline in five to seven years.
The Impact of Childhood Lead Exposure on Crime [study]
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
The “drop” should be through a trap door,like in the good old days.
That would keep the prison population down.
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Have these prisoners been let out temporarily just for a few months, so they can vote?
Vote:Nothing would supprise me, I have a fair idea who scum vote for
October 8th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Bullshit Ryan, sure they are leadheads, but they are in jail because they are scumbags and arsewipes.
Vote:You are not in jail and neither am I, why is that?
Some of the bastards are there because they sniff petrol and then commit crimes. Nobody’s fault except their own
October 8th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Loving family with an adequate income in an adequate neighbourhood while I was growing up, mainly, in my case.
It’s not about sniffing petrol, it’s about kids’ brain chemistry being affected by leaded petrol during key developmental phases resulting in a much higher likelihood of violent crime when they’re older.
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
The widespread us of electronic sentences is probably having an impact. To say the 3 strikes legislation is having an impact is just ludicrous.
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 5:34 pm
Any actual medical evidence Ryan, other than a statistical correlation?
I know that lead can cause neurological problems and can lead to learning difficulties, but that is usually associated with ingestion of lead paint. Having looked at the abstract in your link, I notice that the author is an Economist.
Worth investigating, but likely a coincidence IMO
Or did I miss the joke?
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Ryan: the desparation of the left amazes me…first it was abortions, now leaded petrol…unbelievable! If the secular version of Christ (bit of an oxymoron, but you get my drift) was to come and tell you all your theories were crap and it was the more punitive approach that made the difference you still wouldnt get it…
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 7:02 pm
@ Ryan
Leaded petrol was around for years. It stops pre-ignition (pinking)
“It’s not about sniffing petrol, it’s about kids’ brain chemistry being affected by leaded petrol during key developmental phases resulting in a much higher likelihood of violent crime when they’re older.”
Seeing as lead was taken out about 1993 how do you explain the behaviour of the current 15 year old shits that demand everything?
Vote:October 8th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
David Garret
I see your point but I dislike the Courts being bound by a legislation like this. It was and is unnessceeary
As you are probably sick of hearing from me, on this the situation should never have arisen that William Bell accumulates 168 convictions Get them young is the only way …its called consequences teach them some.
Ryan what total fucking rubbish. Someone somewhere has connned a grant to study any bullshit you can imagine, doesnt make it so
Vote:Leaded petrol, FFS – how about there has now been two generations of New Zealanders who have never known that there are consequences for their actions.
October 8th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
It’s not about sniffing petrol, it’s about kids’ brain chemistry being affected by leaded petrol during key developmental phases resulting in a much higher likelihood of violent crime when they’re older.
Ryan is correct. Key developmental phases is what shapes and makes us.
Extent to which this vs other factors have influence: who knows.
But IF this is correct then it’s an extremely curious correlation.
Vote:October 10th, 2011 at 11:00 am
Any political party that plans to go into the election claiming that three strikes has been a factor in reducing the crime rate, should first consult with the government’s Chief Science Adviser, or the Ministry of Justice. Claims of that kind should either be based on empirical evidence, or not made.
There is at present, no evidence that three strikes legislation has deterred offenders from committing crime. In fact, there is no evidence anywhere in the world that the threat of prison or severe punishment is a deterrent.
If that were true, the death penalty would reduce murder. In the United States, the murder rate in those states with the death penalty has been consistently higher than those who do not have it, for at least twenty years.
Garth McVicar recently claimed that Judges love the sentence, and the public think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. However, very few people know what Three Strikes is. An ACT telephone poll in 2009 showed that only 55% of the public had heard of it. Rethinking conducted an informal survey of 35 offenders recently, and only seven had heard of three strikes, but couldn’t describe how it worked.
David Garrett is on record as claiming that three strikes law was responsible for a 50% reduction in both homicide and robbery convictions in California. What we know is that five years before three strikes was introduced, there was a significant crime drop across the US and Canada. If he was right, the rate of decline should have increased after the legislation was introduced. Instead the decline remained constant, indicating that the decline was due to the factors that existed before the legislation was introduced.
Mr Garrett failed to compare the impact across the 22 states that introduced three strikes legislation, with those that didn’t. When California’s decline in crime was compared with the national average, it showed that New York, not California, had the sharpest decline in crime during the time in question. New York does not have three strikes legislation.
Even in California, the results were unclear. Californian counties that aggressively enforced the law had no greater declines in crime than did counties that used it far more sparingly. One study found that crime dropped by 21.3 percent in the six most lenient “three strikes” counties, compared to a 12.7 percent drop in the toughest counties.”
The Ministry of Justice forecast and the Police are our most reliable source. The Ministry credits the drop in the crime rate, and in imprisonment to demographic changes, changes in Police reporting, alternative dispositions (diversion, pre-charge warnings and eighbourhood policing), improvements in community security, and proactive targeting of serious crime. Mention three strikes as the primary cause, and they fall about laughing.
The Ministry of Justice should however, properly evaluate the impact of three strikes legislation in reducing crime. In that way, social and political commentators can base their views on evidence, rather than wishful thinking.
Vote: