COLUMN: The Daily Chronicle
I trust you have had a happy New Year. So far 2007 hasn’t started well for the Labour Government – their climate change policy has been slammed, the health sector remains in crisis with strikes hurting cancer patients and we have witnessed members of the public placed at risk by repeat violent criminals let out on parole before serving their full prison sentence.
The latest high profile parole failures are further examples of a growing trend in violent crime nationwide. The public are being put in serious danger – while police officers and innocent people are forced to deal with the tragic consequences.
It is not new for serious criminals to be given parole against the wishes of victims. But the sad reality is that too often now, the system is failing to monitor and supervise serious offenders who get the privilege of early release.
We expect that the promises made by authorities about ‘close supervision’ of risky parolees will be honoured, but it is obvious this is not happening.
One of the Government’s primary responsibilities is to keep its citizens safe and secure. But how many more victim’s will there have to be before Labour realises its parole programme needs an overhaul?
The Police and the public should never have been put at risk in the way they have been recently. Tragically, this is becoming typical of a justice system that too often lets the public down.
We are trying to attract more Police to the Horowhenua to keep our communities safe. By allowing violent and dangerous criminals to serve a small portion of their sentence and be released, the Government will struggle to entice new recruits to join the Police force.
The Corrections Department also appears to be in turmoil, with prison budget blowouts (a prison bed costing close to $1 million to be built), Liam Ashley beaten to death in a van by another inmate and Corrections top staff being paid huge bonuses.
The Government needs to sort this mess out and restore public confidence in the parole and justice system.
National has a tough policy of no parole for repeat violent and unrepentant offenders. We believe the worst in our jails should never get parole - they should serve their full sentence.