Thread: Discharge Without Conviction

Originally Posted by Tommy

You'll find that it's the judges and beltway types that are out of touch, I would say MOST NZers on the same wavelength as this thread. It's not their kids getting smashed on the way home from school by ferals, held to ransom by fuckwit neighbours on day 3 of a neverending party, having their only vehicle nicked from outside the train station, stock stolen at night etc etc. Judges live in well-to-do leafy suburbs and don't catch public transport, kids at the private school.. They don't have to deal with the type of people in the dock, outside the court.

So why is it then that "MOST NZers" have not taken the opportunity given to them every couple of years to vote in a party that stands for hard-line justice standards ?

I'll say it again : a county's justice system and sentencing guidelines reflect the societal norms. This is the case in the southern states of America, it is what happens here, and it is what happens in the Scandinavian countries - 3 different examples with massively different "justice" values...

Originally Posted by ebf

So why is it then that "MOST NZers" have not taken the opportunity given to them every couple of years to vote in a party that stands for hard-line justice standards ?

Like we voted for 99 MPs and the anti-smacking law? And got ignored.

BTW, in 1999 we voted on:

""Should there be a reform of our Justice system placing greater emphasis on the needs of victims, providing restitution and compensation for them and imposing minimum sentences and hard labour for all serious violent offences?". This measure passed by 91.78%, still got ignored.

Originally Posted by Tommy

Like we voted for 99 MPs and the anti-smacking law? And got ignored.

BTW, in 1999 we voted on:

""Should there be a reform of our Justice system placing greater emphasis on the needs of victims, providing restitution and compensation for them and imposing minimum sentences and hard labour for all serious violent offences?". This measure passed by 91.78%, still got ignored.

There are two separate response to this.

Firstly, depending on who you ask, some people would say that that referendum did result in a change in direction in this country in terms of criminal justice system:

"In 1999, 92 percent of people voted ‘yes’ to the question, 'Should there be a reform of our justice system placing greater emphasis on the needs of victims, providing restitution and compensation for them and imposing minimum sentences and hard labour for all serious violent offences?'

The government listened, and changed the law, making it harder for violent offenders to be released back into the community.

Fast forward to 2018. The crime rate has dropped steadily since 1992, and is currently at levels last seen in the late 1970s. But, in 2016, the number of prison inmates topped 10,000 for the first time. It now sits at about 10,600. New Zealand’s imprisonment rate is about 220 per 100,000, compared to the OECD average of 147 per 100,000, and it’s rising."

Secondly, it would be a correct observation that referendums quite often fail to result in immediate or material law change. That is partially because referendums are often knee jerk reaction to a issue that may have been blown out of proportion. Most western democracies have now subscribed to a system where the public do not vote on a policy directly, but vote on the party that best share the same value and vision as each voter, then let the parties armed with their votes, negotiate and decide on law and policy.

There are minority parties who champion far harsher criminal justice system, but they usually only have very small support.

Originally Posted by Tommy

Like we voted for 99 MPs and the anti-smacking law? And got ignored.

BTW, in 1999 we voted on:

""Should there be a reform of our Justice system placing greater emphasis on the needs of victims, providing restitution and compensation for them and imposing minimum sentences and hard labour for all serious violent offences?". This measure passed by 91.78%, still got ignored.

Citizen Initiated Referenda are not binding. For good reason. Imagine for a minute what the likely result of a "should MSSA's be banned ?" CIR would be, given that legal firearm license holders make up less than 5% of the voting population...

If you look at the results of Government Referenda, I suspect you'd be hard pressed to find examples that were not implemented.

Originally Posted by ebf

Citizen Initiated Referenda are not binding. For good reason. Imagine for a minute what the likely result of a "should MSSA's be banned ?" CIR would be, given that legal firearm license holders make up less than 5% of the voting population...

If there were appropriate penalties for breaking the law, I doubt there would be the same hysteria we have now (think back to the 2016/2017 MMSA inquiry), as the recidivist pricks that prompted most of that were career crims, and it's much harder to accumulate a pile of AR15s and USCs in a prison, which they ought to have been. Ditto various other cases that brought firearms into public debate.

What's the point you are trying to make @Tommy ? In that list only 2 studied law... Mugabe was a teacher, Bill Clinton studied Politics, Philosophy & Economics.

Mugabe was initially a teacher, but has TWO law degrees from the University of London
Bill Clinton has a Juris Doctor from Yale, he met HRC at that Law School in fact. He was also Attorney General for Arkansas.

If you look at the results of Government Referenda, I suspect you'd be hard pressed to find examples that were not implemented.

Yeah, leave it to our betters eh?

Because whether you like it or not, the masses don't have a friggen clue, they get it right by chance, if ever, and typically the only response they are capable of is the predicable emotional and retributional response. Democracy requires leaders who are capable of ignoring the masses when reason and logic is absent. They don't get that right all the time either.

Here is a treatise on the dangers of stupidity in society based on 5 formulated laws which are as follows:

Law 1: Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
Law 2: The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
Law 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
Law 4: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
Law 5: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Part of the conclusions reached -

The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.

Its an interesting proposition but it ties into that which we all intrinsically should know and to which we are constantly advised - to not just follow the crowd, to do the opposite of the investment trend, to not get on the band wagon nor to join the mob.

For your enlightened consideration...https://qz.com/967554/the-five-unive...man-stupidity/