A good case for three strikes

Stuff reports:

A recidivist bank robber has escaped an indeterminate jail sentence and will instead spend nearly five years behind bars. 

Steven Kurt Peri appeared for sentencing at the High Court at Auckland on Tuesday, after earlier pleading guilty to the aggravated robbery of a West Auckland bank. 

For his conviction he received a second strike warning, meaning that he became ineligible for parole and must serve his entire sentence.

The Crown asked Justice Ailsa Duffy to consider Preventive Detention, an indeterminate sentence which means a prisoner may never be released, to protect the public from him.

That sentence is reserved as punishment for the most serious of crimes, committed by people who are deemed likely to reoffend on a similar level. 

However on Tuesday Justice Duffy said although Peri had made threats, he had never been violent to his victims, and had offered “insight and understanding” into his recent offending. 

In May 2011 Peri was sentenced to three years and nine months for three bank robberies. That was his first strike. If he didn’t get parole he would have got out in February 2015.

Four months later he did another aggravated bank robbery with a gun.

Prior to this:

Justice Duffy told the court on Tuesday that Peri had been deported to New Zealand from Canada after carrying out a number of aggravated robberies there. 

So he is a committed recidivist. He got four years and 11 months this time and is not eligible for parole.

If he does the same again he’ll get a third strike and get an automatic 14 year sentence with no parole.