The Judge is right

The Herald reports:

Killer Beez gang member Zane KJ Hepi was on electronically monitored bail and living at the Grace Foundation drug treatment facility in November 2022 when he covered his ankle monitor in foil and absconded, using the next hour of freedom to commit an aggravated robbery.

It wasn’t until months later that he briefly became the focus of nationwide attentionwhen he was the subject of a large-scale manhunt after escaping from a prison van on an Auckland motorway.

Hepi, 25, appeared in Auckland District Court for sentencing this week on the aggravated robbery charge. It was the latest chapter in a long history of offending and subsequent sentences, Judge Brooke Gibson pointed out.

The judge ordered a sentence of four years and eight months’ imprisonment, to begin only after Hepi finishes serving his current prison term, imposed in August for two burglaries and other charges, including the dramatic escape. …

He asked for an end sentence that wouldn’t be crushing for his client, leaving him without hope.

“Well, it’s pretty hard [to impose anything considered crushing] in the New Zealand sentencing regime,” the judge retorted.

This is correct. Recidivist prisoners just go in and out of jail for short periods of time generally.