Braying Donkeys

Some Reporters and Academics Are In Wonderland

Here is how inane some in the media have become when it comes to crime and punishment.

A lack of evidence jailing people longer puts them or anyone off committing crime makes it difficult to use deterrence as a reason to hand out long prison sentences, a High Court judge has said.  Justice Matthew Palmer told lawyers ahead of sentencing he wanted them to come to court with evidence longer sentences actually had the deterrent effect the law told him to consider.

Days later, defence lawyers came with research showing it didn't work.  The Crown turned up with nothing.  The sentencing notes of Justice Palmer reflect concern around the lack of evidence in an area which the Sentencing Act 2002 says should be considered when judges consider how long to send people to jail.  [NZ Herald]

This is how the story was played up ("framed")  by David Fisher, Herald reporter.  However, in the small print, the matter was quite different.

Palmer said it was "important to deter commercial drug dealing" but the research presented showed it was difficult to expect longer sentences would do so.  "The principle of deterrence on its own does not, in my view, justify a longer sentence if there is nothing to suggest that it would deter."

He said the [convicted] Wellingtons had given plenty of other cause under the law for the "significant" sentences they earned.  Those included holding the pair accountable for harm to the community, compelling a sense of responsibility over the harm caused, to send a message such behaviour was not acceptable and to protect the community offending by either of the two in future.

Riki Wellington, who has children aged 2 and 6, was sentenced on a string of methamphetamine supply charges involving 1.5kg of the drug. He received 13 years in prison.  Palmer rejected Riki Wellington's lawyer's claim there were no victims of his offending, saying "there are very real victims of drug offending.  Supplying methamphetamine has undoubtedly ruined lives and communities of those to whom it was supplied."

The Judge sought to apply the law and handed down serious sentences.  But David Fisher wanted to grind his axe further.  Length of sentences is not a deterrent, anywhere, under any circumstances.  Period!  He raced to one of his "academic sources" in an effort to persuade us that punishment does not deter criminals.

Victoria University criminologist Dr Liam Martin said the theory of deterrence argued along two strands - that the wider community was put off committing crime because of long sentences and that the individual sent to prison did not commit further crime because of the length of sentence.

He said the idea the broader community was dissuaded from criminal offending was impossible to measure.  However, he said there was a large body of evidence showing individuals were not deterred by long sentences and some studies showed those people went on to commit more crime.

It seems to us that the esteemed academic, Dr Liam Martin has crossed a bridge too far.  His argument proves too much.  By his course of reasoning no prison sentences should be handed down for anything.  In fact, incarceration of any kind should be stopped.  Why?  Because it is utterly ineffective, apparently.  May as well have a person one day in prison rather than one decade.  It makes no difference whatsoever as to whether the offender goes on to commit more crime. 

David Fisher (Herald reporter) and Dr Liam Martin have both fallen down Alice's rabbit hole.  They have departed the actual world, preferring to live in their own bizarre Fairy Tale.