 | This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: Organisation no longer operates.(January 2024) |
The Sensible Sentencing Trust was a political advocacy group based in Napier, New Zealand. The Trust's stated goal is "to educate both the public and victims of serious violent and/or sexual crime and homicide" It focuses on advocating for the rights of victims and tougher penalties against offenders. [1]
The Sensible Sentencing Trust' stated purpose sole purpose is "to educate both the public and victims of serious violent and/or sexual crime and homicide." Key goals include educating victims of their rights and entitlements, educating the public about the light of victims, and supporting victims of crime through education, trauma support, accessing protection, and providing social rehabilitation. [1]
The Trust has campaigned for several goals including:
The Sensible Sentencing Trust consists of two separate trusts. [4]
The Sensible Sentencing Trust was formed by Garth McVicar in 2001 in response to the prosecution and trial of Mark Middleton for threatening to kill Paul Dally who tortured, raped, and killed Middleton's 13-year-old stepdaughter Karla Cardno in 1989. Due to public sympathy for Middleton over Dally's crimes, Judge Michael Lance sentenced Middleton to nine months' jail suspended for two years. McVicar supported Middleton during his trial. [6]
Following Middleton's prosecution and trial, McVicar and 30 supporters established the Sensible Sentencing Trust to advocate for tougher sentencing for violent offenders including life imprisonment. Membership quickly grew to 135,000 by 2002. In addition, the Trust attracted 3,000 donors and chapters were established across New Zealand. In addition, the Trust established a youth division. [7]
By 2009, McVicar claimed that the Trust had over 150,000 members including between 15 and 20 Members of Parliament including former ACT MPs David Garrett and Stephen Franks. [6] Notable Trust members have included Stephen Couch and Rita Coskery. Couch was the sister of Susan Couch, a survivor of a 2001 triple homicide at the Panmure Returned and Services' Association (RSA) club perpetrated by William Dwane Bell. Couch as a Trust Member has advocated the reintroduction of capital punishment and three strikes legislation. Coskery was the mother of Auckland pizza delivery driver Michael Choy, who was assaulted and murdered by several youths including Bailey Junior Kurariki. [7]
The Sensible Sentencing Trust has claimed credit for pushing several changes in the New Zealand justice system favouring victims including:
In 2010, the Trust's tax-free charitable status was revoked by the Charities Commission, on the grounds that it had become a political lobby group rather than a charity. In response, McVicar accused the Charities Commission of "muzzling organisations like us that are rocking the boat a little bit". To comply with the Charities Commission's requirements, McVicar announced that the Trust would split into two separate organisations: a charity advocating for victims of crime called the Sensible Sentencing Group Trust and a separate non-charitable political arm that would lobby for harsher criminal penalties called the Sensible Sentencing Trust. [5]
The Trust was a registered electoral promoter at the 2011 general election. [14]
The Trust did not register as a promoter for the 2014 general election, but founder McVicar contended the Napier electorate and the party list as a member of the Conservative Party. [15] Former trust member Ruth Money criticised McVicar's decision to align the Trust with a political party due to revelations that former Conservative leader Colin Craig had sexually harassed former secretary Rachel MacGregor. Money had advocated for MacGregor and opined that McVicar's decision was the "beginning of the end" of his leadership. [7]
In early 2002, the Trust established an online offender database in response to the New Zealand Government's refusal to undertake this task, in spite of repeated requests to do so. [16]
In mid-January 2014, the Trust launched a new website and updated offender database. The SST claimed that the Trust would protect the public and help keep offenders accountable for their crimes. McVicar also announced that the organisation would publish two databases; one for Serious Violent Offenders and one for Paedophiles and Sexual Offenders. At its launch, the updated database contained over 5,000 criminal records with information on release conditions, previous convictions, and a Database Sentencing Tracker for viewing the sentence length of offenders. [17]
Following a privacy breach in 2014, the Trust agreed to provide training to volunteers, but only one person was trained and they left shortly after. [18]
In December 2018, the Privacy Commissioner John Edwards chastised the Trust for wrongfully misidentifying a man as a pedophile on its online database for almost two years. He stated that the Trust had a "continuously negligent, cavalier, and dangerous approach to privacy." [19] [20] [21] In response to criticism by the Privacy Commissioner, McVicar admitted that the organisation "absolutely cocked up and deserved to be publicly identified." He also confirmed that the Trust would correct the inaccurate information on its database. However, he criticised Edwards for making an issue of identifying the Trust while not calling for the names of recidivist violent offenders to be placed in a publicly accessible database. [18]
In December 2018, McVicar stepped down as leader of the Sensible Sentencing Trust and was succeeded by his youngest daughter Jess McVicar, who became the organisation's National Spokesperson. [7]
In January 2021, former New Zealand First Member of Parliament Darroch Ball became the co-leader of the Sensible Sentencing Trust alongside Jess McVicar. [22] As co-leader, Ball criticised the Green Party Co-Leader and minister Marama Davidson for attending a function hosted by the Mongrel Mob gang. [23]
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted criminals are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives. Crimes that warrant life imprisonment are usually violent and/or dangerous. Examples of crimes that result in life sentences are murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, drug trafficking, drug possession, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, aggravated criminal damage, arson, and hate crime, kidnapping, burglary, and robbery, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and genocide.
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A habitual offender, repeat offender, or career criminal is a person convicted of a crime who was previously convicted of other crimes. Various state and jurisdictions may have laws targeting habitual offenders, and specifically providing for enhanced or exemplary punishments or other sanctions. They are designed to counter criminal recidivism by physical incapacitation via imprisonment.
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Crime in New Zealand encompasses criminal law, crime statistics, the nature and characteristics of crime, sentencing, punishment, and public perceptions of crime. New Zealand criminal law has its origins in English criminal law, which was codified into statute by the New Zealand parliament in 1893. Although New Zealand remains a common law jurisdiction, all criminal offences and their penalties are codified in New Zealand statutes.
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