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Speaker 1: Looks like the government is considering a major change to

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Speaker 1: our sentencing laws and that it might introduce minimum sentences. Now,

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Speaker 1: we already obviously have maximum sentences that can be handed out,

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Speaker 1: but as it stands, no minimum Sir Ron Young is

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Speaker 1: a former High Court judge and with us now.

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Speaker 2: Ron, hello, Hello, how are you heaven?

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Speaker 1: Very well? Thank you? Do you think we should have minimums?

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Speaker 2: No? No, it's going to cause an injustice that because

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Speaker 2: it will mean the judges can't take into the facts

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Speaker 2: of the case and they can't take into account the

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Speaker 2: offender's personal circumstances, and that's going to mean that they'll

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Speaker 2: be unfair and unjust.

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Speaker 1: Sense Well, they can, can't they They can take it

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Speaker 1: into account to a point, but not beyond that point.

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Speaker 1: Is that not fair?

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Speaker 2: Well, many of the situations will likely occur where the

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Speaker 2: minimum sentences actually too long based on a proper assessment

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Speaker 2: of the facts and the personal circumstances, So they won't

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Speaker 2: be able to do so in those circumstances, and justices

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Speaker 2: will occur.

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Speaker 1: So part of what is going on here is a

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Speaker 1: reaction to the fact that the judiciary, in handing out

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Speaker 1: what the public may consider too light a sentence is

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Speaker 1: losing the confidence of the public. How do you fix that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well you fix it by understanding the facts. I mean,

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Speaker 2: thirty years ago, people who were convicted of murder and

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Speaker 2: sentenced in life imprisonment generally served around about ten years

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Speaker 2: before they were released. It's now fifteen, eighteen, twenty years.

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Speaker 2: Sentences for rape were three or four years thirty years ago.

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Speaker 2: And in our eight to nine years public have gone

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Speaker 2: a completely wrong idea about the kind of level of sentencing.

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Speaker 2: New Zealand has a heck of a lot of people

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Speaker 2: in prison compared with most of other similar countries, so

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Speaker 2: we're not light in sentencing. We're actually at the heavy end.

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Speaker 1: Have you done any comparisons as to the cumulative sentence

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Speaker 1: discount that is handed down how that compares to historically.

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Speaker 2: Sure, I mean, sentences have got much much heavyer in

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Speaker 2: the last thirty years. And the I mean, the cumulative

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Speaker 2: concurrent issue is as I think, a bit of a

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Speaker 2: red herring, because sentences do take into account the total

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Speaker 2: number of offenses and how they work across the various crime.

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Speaker 1: What I mean, ron is we've got judges handing out

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Speaker 1: sentence discounts of you know, in some cases seventy to

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Speaker 1: eighty percent, which is enormous.

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Speaker 2: Is that normal? No, And I in fact agree with

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Speaker 2: the limitation on forty percent. I think that's fair enough

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Speaker 2: because I do think the sentence must bear a relationship

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Speaker 2: to the criminal offending. So that's an area where I

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Speaker 2: do think seventy and eighty percent is wrong and I

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Speaker 2: think that it does undermine that connection, that important connection

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Speaker 2: between what you do and what the punishment is.

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Speaker 1: Ron, it's good to talk to you. Thank you for

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Speaker 1: your time. That sir Ron Young, former High Court judge,

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Speaker 1: chairperson of the New Zealand Parole Board. For more from

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Speaker 1: the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks that'd

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