Policy
As our name suggests, sentencing is a key policy area for the Sensible Sentencing Trust. In our view, sensible sentencing practice has the greatest potential to ensure justice is not only done, but seen to be done, for victims of crime and the New Zealand public generally.
We believe sentencing should be mostly focused on the harm or loss suffered by the victim. The offender’s circumstances should only be taken into account to a very limited extent.
Currently, and for too long, sentencing in New Zealand is generally much softer (or shorter) than is typically imposed for similar crimes in similar jurisdictions such as Australia, the UK and Canada. This is particularly the case for the most serious crimes such as murder, manslaughter, sexual violations and serious violence.
It is often forgotten that the Sentencing Act is a law developed and passed by the Helen Clark Labour Government in 2002. It has been amended substantially in the more than 20 years since its passing, but the foundation of the law is largely unchanged. We think it is out of date, needlessly complex and too soft.
The Sensible Sentencing Trust believes that the Judiciary in New Zealand have long been heavily activist in their approach and have chosen to interpret the Sentencing Act too far in favour of the offender, rather than the victim and the New Zealand public who deserve protection from those who wish to do us harm.
The changes Government made to the Sentencing Act in March 2025 (Real consequences for crime restored | Beehive.govt.nz) which, amongst other changes, capped sentencing discounts in most cases to 40% and encourage (but does not require) the use of cumulative sentences for offences committed while on bail, parole or in custody, are strongly supported by the Sensible Sentencing Trust, being approaches we have promoted for many years.
But as is too common, these changes do not go far enough and are much watered-down compared to the approach we and most reasonable New Zealanders seek. The Judiciary are likely to find many loopholes and contradictions in the law in order to justify further weak sentences. Time will tell. We hope to be proven wrong.
We rate the current Sentencing Act and sentencing practice overall: 3/10 – Unfit for purpose.
The New Zealand Parole Board states the purpose of parole as:
“Parole allows oversight of an offender's sentence, to help them understand and address their offending and transition from prison to community.”
In reality, the purpose of parole is to release offenders from prison as soon as possible to save money. It’s basically a political bait-and-switch. The Judge hands down what sometimes appears to be a reasonable sentence – or at least one that would not cause complete public outrage. That’s the sentence the public hears or sees reported – known as the headline sentence.
But the subtext, which is often not talked about, is that the offender may be (and often is) released at or soon after reaching just one-third (33%) of the headline sentence.
Take the case of Bridgecorp Finance director Rod Petricevic, convicted in 2012 of misleading investors and knowingly making false statements, following Bridgecorp’s collapse. Petricevic was sentenced to 6 years, 10 months imprisonment. Most victims would have considered that a light sentence given the harm he caused to thousands of investors.
How much time did he actually spend in prison?
Less than half – around 3 years and 4 months imprisonment.
For causing losses to investors totalling almost half a billion dollars. We think that’s outrageous.
Petricevic jailed for 6 and half years - NZ Herald
Parole operates to keep the prison numbers as low as possible. It is not meant to serve justice – that would be done by making parole very difficult to achieve – by the offender proving beyond doubt they have rehabilitated.
Sensible Sentencing Trust considers that parole should not be available until an offender has served at last 80% of their headline sentence. That would pay due respect to the victims, would allow greater certainty for the offender and authorities to focus on proper, consistent, rehabilitation and give the justice system more credibility that it says what it means, and means what it says. At present, most offenders know the justice system is a sick joke.
We rate the current Parole Act and parole practice overall: 4/10 – Worse than average, must do better.
We recognise bail can be one of the more difficult balancing acts in criminal justice.
The right to be considered innocent until proven guilty is an important civil right. Balancing that is the seriousness of the charge(s) a person is accused of, along with the strength of the case against the accused, and the accused’s prior criminal history.
The more difficult task is effecting cultural change within the Judiciary and legal establishment to make sound decisions squarely focusing on public safety and erring on the side of caution in marginal cases.
In 2011, teenager Christie Marceau was tragically murdered by Akshay Chand, who had been released on bail by Judge David McNaughton, after Chand had previously threatened to kill and sexually violate Christie. While on bail, Chand turned up at Christie’s family home and forced his way inside, chasing Christie and stabbing her repeatedly. Christie died in her mother’s arms.
The Sensible Sentencing Trust considered the circumstances of Christie’s murder an egregious example of failure both by the judiciary, who all too often bailed high risk and serious offenders, and the bail law, which heavily favoured the rights of the accused over the safety of victims and the public generally.
Working alongside Christie’s family, the Sensible Sentencing Trust lobbied the Government to strengthen the Bail Act and improve judicial accountability. This campaign was highly successful, with a much strengthened Bail Act Amendment Bill passed by Parliament in 2013. The amended law reversed the onus of proof for an increased range of serious violent and sexual offences, reduced to 18 the age at which bail decisions are made in respect of adults, and removing the strong presumption of bail in respect of those aged 17.
The Bail Act remains far from perfect, but is much-improved with a greater focus on the safety of potential victims and the public generally. Stricter bail decisions thanks to 'Christie's Law' - NZ Herald
We rate the current Bail Act and bail practice overall: 7/10 – Sound, but opportunities for improvement.
We support the right of victims to determine whether an offender receives permanent name suppression, where granting name suppression is intended to protect the victim.
We strongly oppose the common granting of name suppression to protect well-known persons, when a lesser known person would not be granted name suppression. The system should be open and transparent in all except the most exceptional cases.
We consider that many failings of the justice system are due to a lack of openness and transparency. Our view is that all sentencing and parole decisions should be available in a publicly-searchable database.
At present, a small selection of sentencing and parole decisions are chosen by a panel for publication, to give the impression the system is transparent. But this is a ruse. Thousands of such decisions are routinely made and documented annually. There is no sound reason that these are not made available as part of standard process.
In fact, while a copy of a sentencing or parole decision can be requested from a Court or the Parole Board, it must be done through a formal process and a Judge must approve release. Court staff are so overwhelmed with work and poor systems that such requests will often disappear into a black hole of inaction. There must be a better way.
We also advocate for a publicly-searchable database of criminal convictions. Most criminal convictions are entered and sentenced in open court, where any person can attend and observe proceedings. Criminal sentencing is therefore a matter of public record.
Any person should be able to search and obtain the criminal offending history of any other person to understand the risk, if any, of interacting with a particular person. This is especially so with criminal convictions of a sexual nature, which present women and children in particular with greater risk of harm when a person’s prior convictions are not easily known.
Sensible Sentencing Trust continues to advocate strongly for a far more open and transparent justice system both for public safety reasons and for good oversight.
