By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
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‘parole should be a privilege, not a right’ <strong>and</strong> Burton had been released ‘because of asc<strong>and</strong>alous government preference for criminals’ (McVicar, 2007b: Par. 8). TheTrust concluded its argument in this case by exclaiming: ‘we will campaign to endparole as a right. There is no truth in sentencing while life does not mean life’(McVicar, 2007b: Par. 8). The cases of Liam Ashley <strong>and</strong> Graeme Burton were,therefore, proof that changes needed to made to New Zeal<strong>and</strong> sentencing policy, asthe government’s lack of action resulted in ‘innocent members of the public’becoming victims of senseless crime (McVicar, 2007c: Par. 4). The government’sfailure to address public concerns about crime in the past (see Chapter Three) meantthere was immense pressure on it to respond to these two extreme cases.‘Hard cases make bad law’However, the government failed to resist these pressures <strong>and</strong> made amendments topolicy on the basis of two extreme cases. Prime Minister Helen Clark acknowledgedin March 2007 that amendments to the Parole Act 2002 would ‘enable the ParoleBoard to respond more effectively to cases like that of Graeme Burton’ (Clark, 2007:Par. 1). Similarly, Justice Minister Mark Burton acknowledged that changes toparole would ‘address issues that were raised by the Graeme Burton case’ (NewZeal<strong>and</strong> Parliament, 2007b: Par. 10). The Justice Minister outlined the changes asfollows:The Parole Act will be amended to make it clear that release onparole is a privilege <strong>and</strong> not a right. The Parole Board will be giventhe power to make confidentiality orders, which will help to ensurethat the Board is in possession of all the relevant information when itis considering a case. The Commissioner of Police will be given theright to apply for the recall of a parolee to prison in limitedcircumstances. The Parole Board will be given the power to summonwitnesses.(Burton, 2006b: Par. 5, emphasis added)However, in making the changes the government has done much to undermine itsown Effective Interventions strategy, in which parole eligibility <strong>and</strong> plannedsentence reduction were carefully balanced. Similarly as regards prison conditions,when in May 2007 when the Labour government announced that waist restraintswere to be used whilst transferring prisoners in the back of prison vans ("Prisoners in93