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Archived Press Releases 2003 June 29th

Judge calls for "Commonsense"

(29th June 2003)

Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar said the trust had written to congratulate Chief District Court Judge David Carruthers for his courageous speech at the opening of the J.P.'s conference in Nelson.

Judge Carruthers told the conference he wanted to cover and aspect of the law that had been "pressing on my conciousness more and more, and that is the question of preventing crime".

Mr McVicar said the Trust had been lobbying Judges and defence lawyers for some time to take ownership of the violent crime epidemic that is spiraling out of control in New Zealand. It is incredibly heartening for us to see Judge Carruthers responding to the call and encouraging others to do likewise.

The Judge went on to say it is not enough to simply respond to the worsening crime and deteriorating social environments and encouraged those attending to take the responsibilty to ask what is happening and how they could prevent it.

Encouraging the conference to consider the research done by Professor Larry Sherman in the United States on crime prevention practices. "None of it is brain surgery, all of it is within our grasp and all pretty basic common sense" Judge Carruthers said. Action is needed and New Zealand did not have to "reinvent the wheel", other countries had experimented and we should learn from those experiments.

Speaking on the escalating drug and alcohol abuse Judge Carruthers said New Zealand could not afford inaction in the face of what is a national disaster.

Mr McVicar said Judge Carruthers is showing amazing leadership, hopefully others will follow, maybe even a defence lawyer or two might encourage their clients to accept responsibility and accountability for crimes committed.

Regards,

Garth McVicar
National Spokesperson,
Sensible Sentencing Trust.