By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

eferendum into legislation, motivated McVicar to form the Sensible SentencingTrust in March 2001 (McVicar, 2002b: Section 2).The Sensible Sentencing Trust is an anti­crime, pro­victim pressure group whoselobbying began with a specific focus on the recidivist violent offender. As outlinedin their first newsletter, the group’s main goal was to ‘ensure that … horrendouslyviolent murderers never again pose a risk to New Zealand society’ (McVicar, 2001:Par. 5); a move that would necessitate ‘sensible sentencing’ where life would ‘meanlife’ (McVicar, 2001: Par. 15). The Trust first came to public attention in 2002 whenit organised two marches, both of which gained extensive media coverage, due to thedramatic, newsworthy appeal (see Berry, 2002; Boos greet defence," 2002; Murdervictims'," 2002; Tunnah, 2002). The marches took place in Auckland two weeksprior to the election (Tunnah, 2002) and in Wellington a week later ("Murdervictims'," 2002). Many of the marchers in the ‘election­campaign focused rally’(Tunnah, 2002: Par. 5) held crosses, some bearing the names of murder victims, withparticipants chanting the populist ‘war­cry’ of ‘enough is enough’ (McVicar, 2006a:Par. 4). While they were intended to be remembrance rallies, the Sensible SentencingTrust used the opportunity to draw attention to violent crime statistics inNew Zealand. Offering no in­depth discussion on cause and effect, an article in theNew Zealand Herald quoted McVicar, noting that while there were only twohomicides in 1952 ‘[f]ifty years later, the victims of murder or manslaughter for theyears 1992 and 2001 totalled 1,204’ (Tunnah, 2002: Par. 4) 22 . The marchessucceeded in attracting the attention of MPs and government ministers alike("Campaign diary," 2002). Their attendance demonstrated the power and authoritythe Trust had obtained since its inception in 2001 and the influence it was beginningto have. It also captures a strategy used by the Trust that is unique to New Zealandpenal lobby groups: the Trust actively campaign for the harsh treatment of offenders,whilst simultaneously advocating for victims’ rights. Despite the existence of variousother victims’ groups in New Zealand, the Trust managed to create a separate spaceand unique identity for itself. What it wanted to do was not simply to provide forvictims, but instead, to bring about a more general rebalancing of the criminal justice22McVicar failed to mention the changes in reporting and recording of offences, see Maguire (2002)for further detail.45