MICHAEL LAWS: Catch and release on Home Services

Jan

MICHAEL LAWS: Catch and release

posted by admin in Window Cleaning

It is as much a part of Kiwi culture as stealing the dead is with East Cape whanau. We possess an adolescent, anti-authoritarian streak that enjoys pricking the puffery of the pompous, if never quite being sure of time or place.
We recognise all the post-modern symptoms of such yobbishness in our kids behaviour. The binge drinking, the tagging and vandalism, the circular migrations of boy racers and their hangers-on. Mix some party pills, P and piss, and paramedics are left to clean up the mess after the inevitable meltdowns.
And the great thing about our innate anarchy is that it transcends class and culture. Private school-educated white boys are just as likely to riot in Dunedin streets, as Polynesian kids knife themselves in some South Auckland ghetto. Their adults might tut-tut from a distance, but the moment the police start apprehending their darlings then theyre as defensive as a legal aid lawyer.
Somewhere along the line, parliament has indulged such rationale. Liberal bail laws now routinely place murderers, rapists and other low-lifes back on our streets just days after their crime. They also hate the idea of people being incarcerated for the length of their sentence. That would just be cruel and unnatural and bloody expensive. Far better to parole them early. Even better place them next door to a victims family.
And yet despite being one of the most imprisoned populations, per capita, on the planet, it seems we like to kidglove crims once weve caught them. Whether this is state policy or a judicial quirk, Im not really sure. But the effect is the same. We have lost faith in the justice system to dispense justice.
It is also a part of the reason that Australia has such allure. We perceive our trans-Tasman neighbour to be not just bigger and brighter, but safer. They may have a corrupt police force, ethnic muggings and consider pack-raped 10-year-old Aboriginal girls to be willing, but Australia is still regarded as fundamentally fine.
Such perceptions are also aided and abetted by New Zealands media. Essentially lazy, journos consider crime and criminal conduct to be an easy get. You dont need to leave your desk just a phone call to the cops on whatever detritus theyve swept from the streets.
Our media are also into crime porn. They place TV cameras in murder trial courtrooms, edit court transcripts for the most shocking torture detail and perversely describe every bruise and blow suffered by sundry victims. The end result is that we perceive ourselves to be awash with psychopaths, even though we arent.
And then there are the judges. The sacred cows of our legal system: beyond criticism or reproach. Which contributes significantly to so many perverse decisions being made by the bench.
Instead of being publicly pilloried for their excesses and illogicalities, they retire to their nice suburban enclaves aware that only they can properly divine the magnificence and magnanimity of their existence.
Example one: the decisions of two High Court judges in Dunedin that seemingly okayed Pacific Island student Patricia Golovale-Siaosi killing her newborn child.
Golovale-Siaosi was on a scholarship to Otago University but got pregnant to her Massey University boyfriend.
She hid the pregnancy from everyone including her sister boarding at the same residential hostel %26quot;in case they teased her and she lost her scholarship%26quot;.
She gave birth to the live child in the hostel toilet, popped it in a plastic bag and threw it out the window into the garden below. Then fainted and insisted that she had just experienced a heavy period. In other words, she kept lying. She confessed only when the medical evidence was presented to her as incontrovertible.
In June this year, Justice Graham Pankhurst did not enter a conviction against Golovale-Siaosi and adjourned the sentencing on the grounds that she still had exams to sit in November.
Then, last week, Justice John Hansen sentenced this dismal baby-killer to 12 months supervision and 130 hours of community work on a charge of infanticide. Images of the woman were not allowed although her name could be published. And we wonder why we have a child murder epidemic in this country. Simple. We dont call it murder and we let the killers go free.
The judgements in this case have demonstrated an amazing ability to aid and abet that epidemic.
Example two: Chris Kahui. Repeatedly bailed despite being the alleged killer of twin three-month old boys. No matter that he keeps breaching bail conditions, it is considered absolutely OK to let such an individual roam our streets. Along with 24 other alleged killers, also out on bail, awaiting trial.
What is the point of the police investigating serious crime, then arresting and charging those they claim are our serial low-lifes, if the response of the judiciary is to release them instantly with a perverse kind of %26quot;catch and release%26quot; justification? Yes, the government is culpable for liberalising bail regulations. But ultimately it is the individual judge who deems society to be not at risk.
As with the 16-year-old bailed from the Morrinsville Youth Court for sentencing for aggravated robbery who then skipped, and allegedly raped a 15-year-old stranger.
What did the court do after hearing his latest plea? This is New Zealands justice system, so the Hamilton court bailed him again.
Soft judges are killing New Zealand. Literally. They demonstrate that there is no justice for victims nor for decent members of society. They are out of touch. They must go.