Venu Menon
Wellington, March 7,2024
“Retail crime has indeed exploded in the previous six years, with reported victims of retail crime up by 110 percent,” Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith said in Parliament on Thursday.
The minister added: “The Government’s committed to restoring real consequences for crime, which is why, as part of the coalition agreement with ACT and supported by New Zealand First, we’ve committed to adding additional aggravating factors during sentencing where the victim is working solo or adjacent to the dwelling. This will add further protections to small business owners from retail crime and is amongst the many steps that we have taken to rebuild confidence in the justice system and to restore law and order.”
Goldsmith made the remarks in the lead-up to the introduction of the Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill, a legislation aimed at giving police additional tools in the crackdown on gangs “who inflict fear and misery on everyday Kiwis.”
The minister noted that gangs have recruited more than 3,000 members over the last five years, a 51% increase.
“Meanwhile, gang-related violence, public intimidation and shootings have significantly escalated, with violent crime up 33 percent,” Goldsmith informed the House.
This has prompted the National, ACT and NZ First coalition government to “ban all gang insignia in public places, create greater powers to stop criminal gangs associating and communicating, and give greater weight to gang membership at sentencing.”
Police will be empowered to issue dispersal notices, which will require gang members to “immediately leave the area and not associate with one another for seven days.”
Gangs will be slapped with “non-consorting orders” by courts, barring gang offenders from “associating or communicating for up to three years.”
Gang membership will now be an aggravating factor at sentencing, “enabling courts to impose more severe punishments.”
The amended legislation stops funding for Section 27 cultural reports that “proliferated under the former regime, consuming more than $7 million out of the legal aid budget.”
The cultural reports under Section 27 provided courts with background information about offenders that allowed for a mitigated sentence.
But Labour’s Duncan Webb was on his feet calling the government’s ban on gang insignia “wasteful” as it would do little to eliminate gangs.
Minister Goldsmith disagreed with that analysis, and said, “Actually, we’ve seen a 50 percent increase in gang membership under the previous Government, and we want to stop that, because we believe that law-abiding citizens should be going about their business without being intimidated by gangs.”
The minister claimed gangs were “recruiting faster than the police over the past six years, from 6,000-odd in 2018 to 9,000 at present—a 50 percent increase.”
The minister wrapped up his address in the House by observing that “it’s time that we had some extra tools to help the police do their job and keep our communities safe.”
Venu Menon is an Indian Newslink reporter based in Wellington
