National has today released the seventh in our series of Discussion Documents. The law and order document has a range of proposals to put victims at the heart of the justice system, Leader of the Opposition Simon Bridges says.
“National believes victims should get justice, criminals should be held accountable for the harm they cause and offenders should be rehabilitated so they can become contributing members of our society.
“We will crack down on gangs whose numbers are increasing at almost twice the rate of new police recruits. We’re proposing a new police unit which would harass and interfere with gang activity, banning gang patches and revoking parole for those who associate with gangs.
“We also want to speed up access to justice, make the justice system fairer for victims and apply our Social Investment Approach to stop people offending in the first place.
We are committing to:
- Giving Police greater powers to search the cars and homes of violent gang members
- Reintroducing our Social Investment Approach to justice
- Reintroducing the Meth Action Plan, updated for the 2020s
- Increasing penalties for those caught supplying synthetics
- Reintroducing a pilot programme of mental health nurses in Police watch houses
We are proposing to:
- Ban gang patches and insignia in public places
- Create a new sentence for violent gang crime
- Widen the clean slate programme for young offenders
- Increase penalties for the most serious young offenders
- Make working prisons compulsory
- Streamline the courts system
- Make the Victims Notification Register an opt-out system
- Refuse parole to murderers who don’t give the location of a body
“Law and order is personal for me. I worked as a Crown Prosecutor on more than a hundred jury trials. I’ve seen the harm serious offenders have caused families and communities. I want New Zealand to be the safest country in the world.
“National is the party of law and order. We’re doing the hard work now so we can hit the ground running in 2020.”
