Tougher Sentences

United Future will:

• Increase minimum non-parole periods for violent offenders so that they are not released before time, and impose sentences of preventative detention for all serious violent and sexual crimes.
• Introduce tougher minimum penalties for child abuse and neglect, child sexual offences and child pornography.
• Scrap concurrent sentences so that multiple offenders will pay for each crime committed, with no discounts
• Ensure that those found guilty of heinous murders face life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole.
• Make suitable employment and accommodation integral components of any parole conditions, with non-compliance resulting in the offender returning to prison.
• Remand all multiple violent sex-offenders in custody under monitoring regimes in prison or in a mental health facility for life
• Deny home detention for violent offenders, drug dealers, and child abusers, and enforce breaches of home detention conditions with an additional custodial sentence
• Introduce minimum sentences that more accurately reflect the nature of offending, the impact on victims, and the social denunciation of crime
• Ensure that discretion exercised by judges in sentencing reflects the circumstance of the crime rather than the circumstances of the offender.
• Encourage the use of creative and individualised parole provisions (e.g. curfews, weekend detainment, community work) to assist in the rehabilitation of the offender.
• Increase the minimum non-parole period for non-violent offences from one-third to two-thirds of the sentence served.
• Introduce association with any member of a criminal organisation as a parole violation.
• Make treatment programmes compulsory for all sex-offenders
• Ensure that parole conditions for sex offenders include monitoring, curfews, residential assessments and voluntary chemical castration where it is considered to be beneficial.
• Increase the maximum order imposed by the Youth Court for offenders to attend community-based rehabilitation (e.g. child sex offender programmes) from six months to eighteen months.
• Ensure that compulsory treatment orders for offenders suffering from temporary mental health disorders do not constitute time off a custodial sentence.
• Establish a dedicated facility for the criminally insane
• Introduce legislation that recognises looting as a specific crime, including a harsh penalty regime

		Return to Policies Index

Home | News | Successes | The Team | Policies | Get Involved

United Future Contacts: 0800 UFNZHQ
Parliamentary: Bowen House, Lambton Quay, Wellington E-mail: Ph: 04 471 9410