By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
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 <strong>and</strong> moveaway from populist influences. But as Smith (2007) has observed, the politicalclimate in New Zeal<strong>and</strong> 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 <strong>and</strong> the media tend to polarize. The almostinevitable response of “let’s pass or amend the law” is often afruitless reaction that is piecemeal <strong>and</strong> 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 <strong>and</strong> policymakers,anecdotes <strong>and</strong> 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 <strong>and</strong> criminal justice issues, or they are in response to‘concrete but atypical cases’ (Keith Crew, Lutz, & Fahrney, 2002: 178). Two suchcases occurred in New Zeal<strong>and</strong> in 2006 <strong>and</strong> 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 rem<strong>and</strong> would be the best option for their son (Hayman, 2006). During thisrem<strong>and</strong>, Ashley was beaten to death by another prisoner whilst being transferred inthe back of a prison van. The media emphasised on the one h<strong>and</strong>, the vulnerability ofthe 17yearold ‘babyfaced’ teenager, <strong>and</strong> 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 Zeal<strong>and</strong>’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