By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

Because of the capability of the media to galvanize public opinion, the governmentremained very much a hostage to its fortune as it tried to change course and moveaway from populist influences. But as Smith (2007) has observed, the politicalclimate in New Zealand was making this increasingly difficult:Criminal justice has unfortunately reached the stage where rationaldebate is difficult. When an incident occurs the responses from thepublic, politicians and the media tend to polarize. The almostinevitable response of “let’s pass or amend the law” is often afruitless reaction that is piecemeal and probably not effective … Themaxim “hard cases make bad law” is particularly appropriate.As noted above, when politicians react to extraordinary events in the media there islittle chance that the outcome will be rational. For politicians and policymakers,anecdotes and sensationalised reports of victim suffering are increasingly used asmeaningful data in the implementation of sentencing policy (Steen, 2009). Morespecifically, political constructions of crime have become reliant on mediaabstractions about crime and criminal justice issues, or they are in response to‘concrete but atypical cases’ (Keith Crew, Lutz, & Fahrney, 2002: 178). Two suchcases occurred in New Zealand in 2006 and 2007, effectively sabotaging thegovernment’s attempt to reconstruct penal policy.The case of Liam AshleyThe first involved the death of teenager Liam Ashley in September 2006. AfterAshley (who suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder) took his mother’s car withoutpermission, his parents made the decision to deny him bail, believing that a shorttime on remand would be the best option for their son (Hayman, 2006). During thisremand, Ashley was beaten to death by another prisoner whilst being transferred inthe back of a prison van. The media emphasised on the one hand, the vulnerability ofthe 17­year­old ‘baby­faced’ teenager, and on the other, the ‘unpredictable’ nature ofthe other ‘serial violent offender’ ("The parents of Liam Ashley," 2006: Par. 1) whohad 80 prior convictions (Hayman, 2006). To the media, the murder was not aportrayal of New Zealand’s prison system breaking down, or a consequence ofprison overcrowding (which had led to prisoners being transported in overcrowdedvans). Nor was it a question of why Ashley’s parents considered prison to be the‘safest place’ for their son (Diaz, 2006: Par. 4). Instead, in another replay of the89