Tougher sentences for first responder assaults

The Herald reports:

St John is throwing its support behind the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill, under New Zealand First MP Darroch Ball, which would see six months’ jail for anyone intentionally hurting a first responder.

The member’s bill is expected to complete its first reading in the House today and pass with cross-party support.

But Labour and the Greens may not support it beyond select committee, seeing as a mandatory minimum sentence would remove judicial discretion in the same way that the three strikes law does – which Labour and the Greens wanted to scrap, but couldn’t without NZ First’s votes.

I hope the bill does pass all the way. Certainty of consequence is one of the better ways to reduce such assaults.