By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

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in the future). However, the media had already attributed blame to the Parole Boardfor the breakdown of his case and, in so doing, had helped to create a very angrypublic and political backlash against penal bureaucracies.If this case further undermined the credibility of establishment elites, the governmentwas also pressured by members of opposing parties who drew on these events tohighlight the government’s failings. Leader of the Opposition, John Key, made thefollowing statement regarding then Prime Minister Helen Clark and the Departmentof Corrections:She knows that that department is operating in a culture of denialwith a catalogue of failure. That is what she knows … She knows thatif that department were doing its job properly, Liam Ashley would bealive. She knows if that department were doing its job properly, aNew Zealander would not have died at the hands of Graeme Burton.(New Zealand Parliament, 2007c: Par. 2627)National Party member Chester Burrows followed suit with the following statement:Let us have a look at the Graeme Burton debacle … Who was incharge of Graeme Burton at that time? The answer is that it was theDepartment of Corrections. Burton was on parole, and it was thedepartment’s job to watch over him to ensure that his movementswere compliant with his parole conditions … The fact is that thisGovernment does not know how to “do” corrections … The Ministerhimself has to accept that the department has never been run sobadly …(New Zealand Parliament, 2007: Par 120The government’s attempt to reconstruct penal policy had been interrupted by twoextraordinary scandals in the media. Not only were these scandals used by opposingMPs to highlight the government’s incompetence, the scandals also breathed furtherlife into the Sensible Sentencing Trust.Along with its advancement of ‘Three Strikes’ laws after Liam Ashley’s death, theBurton scandal provided the Trust with more ‘ammunition’ to use against thegovernment; first, it was proof that the government favoured criminals over victims,and secondly, that the government’s penal bureaucracy was acting against theinterests of ‘ordinary’ people. The Burton case, it was believed, was evidence that92
‘parole should be a privilege, not a right’ and Burton had been released ‘because of ascandalous 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 and Graeme Burton were,therefore, proof that changes needed to made to New Zealand 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 and 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’ (NewZealand 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 and 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 and 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
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AcknowledgementsWriting this thesis
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ContentsAbstract ..................
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IntroductionIn September 2007, New
Page 9 and 10:
Thereafter, the Labourled coaliti
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Postwar Security and Penalwelfa
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the exterior of electoral politics,
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social conditions, towards that whi
Page 17 and 18:
penal policy development where they
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implementation of this legislation.
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increasingly aware of crime, gainin
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immigration was considered a threat
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in agricultural exports, particular
Page 27 and 28:
The time would seem to be appropria
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In keeping crime out of the public
Page 31 and 32:
The Labour Party’s response to th
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across a multitude of family househ
Page 35 and 36:
Changes in New Zealand mediaThe dif
Page 37 and 38:
dominant feature of New Zealand soc
Page 39 and 40:
Despite its manifest contradictions
Page 41 and 42: Governments and their civil servant
Page 43 and 44: The Victims Task Force believed tha
Page 45 and 46: eferendum into legislation, motivat
Page 47 and 48: [New Zealand was] one of the safest
Page 49 and 50: governments in the hope that ‘suc
Page 51 and 52: McVicar paints of himself as the
Page 53 and 54: that New Zealanders have been expos
Page 55 and 56: This combination of circumstances c
Page 57 and 58: Sympathy, empathy, commiseration an
Page 59 and 60: [h]ad not risen from the ‘victims
Page 61 and 62: illicit a response from the communi
Page 63 and 64: Reform Bill). The Trust made submis
Page 65 and 66: The willingness by Opposition MPs t
Page 67 and 68: I remind [the National Party] that
Page 69 and 70: However, the Labourled government
Page 71 and 72: 6). While these opposing parties po
Page 73 and 74: One development in particular incre
Page 75 and 76: policymaking 32 . From 2000 to 2006
Page 77 and 78: had removed suspended sentences as
Page 79 and 80: Chapter Four:Resistance to Penal Po
Page 81 and 82: 2004: 44). The situation worsened i
Page 83 and 84: were designed to address New Zealan
Page 85 and 86: $3.341 million annually from 2009/2
Page 87 and 88: organisation, was interested in bur
Page 89 and 90: Because of the capability of the me
Page 91: The case of Graeme BurtonThe second
Page 95 and 96: given the difficulties in measureme
Page 97 and 98: package to prioritise this issue. H
Page 99 and 100: emained insecure and overtly puniti
Page 101 and 102: the end of its tenure. As a result,
Page 103 and 104: The thesis has explained and analys
Page 105 and 106: main determinants are addressed. As
Page 107 and 108: Atkinson, J. (2002). Structures of
Page 109 and 110: Bureau of Justice Statistics (2008b
Page 111 and 112: Cullen, P., & Lloyd, C. (1991). Lob
Page 113 and 114: Department of Statistics (N.Z) (199
Page 115 and 116: Hall, G., & O'Driscoll, S. (2002).
Page 117 and 118: Johnson, R. J., & Ogloff, J. R. P.
Page 119 and 120: Maguire, M. (2002). Crime data and
Page 121 and 122: Ministry of Justice (2002a). Senten
Page 123 and 124: New Zealand Parliament (1993a). Cri
Page 125 and 126: asket.co.nz.helicon.vuw.ac.nz/searc
Page 127 and 128: O'Conner, D. (2006). Effective Inte
Page 129 and 130: Prisoners in line for waist restrai
Page 131 and 132: Sentencing Amendment Act. (2007). R
Page 133 and 134: http://www.stats.govt.nz/products
Page 135 and 136: contours of New Zealand (pp. 1111
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By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

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