Poll confirms strong public support for Three Strikes

2 June 2018

The Sensible Sentencing Trust has today released the results of a poll commissioned to gauge public support for the Three Strikes law.

Sensible Sentencing Trust Founder, Garth McVicar, today said: “Public safety has always been important to the New Zealand public, and this poll confirms support for Three Strikes is strong at 68% overall support.”

The poll also provides a breakdown of support by Party Voter. “As we expected, support is strongest amongst National and New Zealand First voters. What we did not expect was the strong level of support amongst Labour voters, which at 63% is also very strong.

“Justice Minister Andrew Little’s wholly ideological desire to repeal Three Strikes runs counter to not only the views of the general public, but a substantial proportion of his own party’s voters. He risks blood on his hands when the inevitable re-offending by Second and Third-striker career criminals are back on the streets.

“The poll showed respondents had even greater support for Three Strikes when key data about the risk profile and criminal convictions records of the Second and Third-Strike offenders was explained.

“Data complied by the Sensible Sentencing Trust indicates Second and Third Strikers make up only 1.35% of the prison population – about 140 of the most serious violent or sexual offenders. These are some of the most prison-worthy offenders. If Andrew Little wants to free up prison space, it won’t be achieved by repealing Three Strikes and letting out some of the highest risk offenders in New Zealand.” concluded McVicar.

The poll was conducted by Curia Market Research in late February and early March 2018 and was based on the responses of 965 respondents. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.2%.

The full poll results are available here:
http://sst.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Three-Strikes-Poll-Results-March-2018.pdf

ENDS

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