The Sensible Sentencing Trust is slamming the Government’s tweaks to it’s Three Strikes 2.0 law labelling them a ‘weak compromise that lets victims down’.

Lawyer, and Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman, Stephen Franks, said:

"The Three Strikes changes are a triumph of public service bureaucrats over evidence-based policy. Changing the threshold so a strike only counts if a criminal gets 12 months imprisonment at the first strike stage and two year threshold for second and third strikes makes no sense at all.”

“The Government just doesn’t get it. The whole idea of Three Strikes is that the strike occurs upon conviction not based on the sentencing judge’s discretion.”

“We’ve modelled the Government’s changes using the 25 ‘third strikers’ under the original regime. Under the Bill as it was, just seven would qualify for a third strike. And with these changes, it’s still just eight – less than a third who would face the deterrent of a third strike under the original law.”

“It doesn’t even carry over the existing strikes of of the old regime. It restores strike status only to those who meet these new thresholds. It’s literally letting previous strikers off.”

"National and ACT talk tough on crime, but are failing to deliver. This watered down version of Three Strikes won’t work.”

“What was the point of ACT campaigning on reinstating what the judges and Labour’s luvvies canned, if they bottle it when in power?

NOTES:

Analysis by the Sensible Sentencing Trust shows that only one additional third striker would qualify under the changes announced today compared to the proposal introduced in April.

This new threshold also applies to the "carry over" aspect – which means that most of the 14,687 former strikers will not qualify at all (so will be ‘let off’ from their existing strikes, despite convictions for serious offences).'

We’ve also modelled applying the 12 month sentence threshold to just the third strike stage. If that proposal had been adopted, just two cases that would not qualify as third strikers. These two cases are those opponents of Three Strikes regularly refer to: Both Daniel Fitzgerald and Raven Campbell would not qualify as Third Strikers.

Application of the law to previous “third strikers”:

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