The Press on three strikes law

The Press editorial:

The compromise reached between National and the ACT Party on the so-called three-strikes regime for dealing with repeat violent offenders is a sensible one.

It eliminates flaws in the original bill and will produce a law that deals effectively with the worst of our violent criminals in a way that voters have shown they want. It reflects a policy on which both the ACT Party and National campaigned during the last election, but the substance of it is from ACT and thus represents another considerable political achievement for the party’s leader, Rodney Hide.

Credit goes to Rodney and David Garrett for securing an agreement. And while it will take a few years to take effect, it’s going to be great knowing everytime someone gets convicted in court for a serious violent or sexual offence, that on their third strike they will be spending a long time in prison.

Under the proposed regime, a person who commits one of the 36 qualifying offences will be sentenced in the same way as they are now. That means that if the sentence is one of imprisonment, then only a part of this must be served in prison. But offenders will be warned that if they commit a second of the qualifying offences, they will receive the same sentence as they would now but will serve, in prison, the whole of any term of imprisonment they are given. On a third offence, the sentence will be the maximum for the crime and all of it will have to be served in prison. The only exception would be if it were “manifestly unjust” for such a sentence to be imposed.

And those who get to their second strike will know that if they seriously offend again, there is no real chance of just a short prison sentence, with early release on parole. If they rape they will do 20 years in jail.

But, more importantly, evidence from other jurisdictions clearly shows that similar laws elsewhere have deterred serious crime. The most commonly cited example is the three-strikes law in California. The California law was not well constructed and has flaws that the bill proposed here has eliminated. But, for all those flaws, academic studies have shown that the law, which has been in effect for more than a decade, has measurably deterred the crimes it covers, despite a rise in other offending.

Incentives work. But even putting aside that debate, if a serious violent or sexual offender is in jail for longer, then they are not able to menace the public as often.