‘Prime Minister John Key told reporters that an agreement with the ACT Party had been reached and the policy would be incorporated in to legislation due in parliament in March…

Mr Key today said the altered policy would incorporate “significant aspects of ACT’s three strikes policy.” An offender would receive a standard sentence and warning for their first serious offence. The second offence would usually lead to a jail term with no parole and a further warning. On conviction for a third serious offence, the offender would receive the maximum penalty in prison for that offence with no parole.’

Imposing harsher sentences for violent crimes (or ‘sensible sentencing’, as its proponents call it) has long been one of the ACT party’s key policies. Their argument appears to be that harsher prison sentences will act as a deterrent to potential criminals, thus reducing the crime rate. It sounds like good common sense: the worse the anticipated punishment for an action is, the lower the likelihood that a rational agent will pursue that action.

The only problem is that it doesn’t resemble reality. For decades, study after study has shown that harsher sentencing has if anything an adverse effect upon recidivism rates, and precious little deterrent effect. For instance, an investigation by Chen & Shapiro (2004) shows that ‘harsher prison conditions cause higher rates of post-release criminal behavior, behavior which is also measurably more violent.’ (Click here for a summary of their findings)

However, one cherry-picked article is hardly convincing on its own. Much better evidence is a report commissioned by the Department of the Solicitor General Canada compiling ‘fifty studies dating from 1958 involving 336,052 offenders and producing 325 correlations between recidivism and (a) length of time in prison and recidivism or (b) serving a prison sentence vs. receiving a community-based sanction’.

The report found that:

‘Under both of the above conditions, prison produced slight increases in recidivism. Secondly, there was some tendency for lower risk offenders to be more negatively affected by the prison experience.

The essential conclusions reached from this study were:

1. Prisons should not be used with the expectation of reducing criminal behaviour.

2. On the basis of the present results, excessive use of incarceration has enormous cost implications.

3. In order to determine who is being adversely affected by prison, it is incumbent upon prison officials to implement repeated, comprehensive assessments of offenders’ attitudes, values, and behaviours while incarcerated.

4. The primary justification of prison should be to incapacitate offenders (particularly, those of a chronic, higher risk nature) for reasonable periods and to exact retribution.’

Moving closer to home, these opinions are shared by our Chief Justice, Dame Sian Elias. In October last year, Dame Elias gave a controversial Shirley Smith address on the current state of criminal justice in New Zealand. Journalist Colin Espiner called the speech ‘the most insightful and damning summary of justice policy in this country since the Roper Report’ but ‘political suicide’, and predicted her imminent disappearance from the top job for opposing the judicial policies of both major political parties. Dame Elias’ address outlined the considerable shifts in New Zealand’s attitude towards tackling crime during her forty years of involvement in criminal justice, and how increasingly punitive sanctions against offenders and more victim-focused judiciaries have not made our communities any safer. Rather than summarise her arguments further here, if you’ve got the time I recommend reading the speech itself.

The three strikes law is intended to dissuade convicts from re-offending by making the prospect of future imprisonment less appealing. If such policies work then we ought to observe an inverse correlation between sentence lengths and crime rates. However as the above reports make clear, this is not the case – in fact the inverse appears true. As Lord Bingham pointed out in 2000, ‘the problem with incarceration is that in all but a small number of cases at some point the offender must re-enter society.’ In practice, prisons tend to function as ‘monster-factories’, by locking up society’s most aggressive and at-risk individuals in a place where they will reinforce each other’s behaviour and teach each other more effective ways of breaking the law. The result is that offenders are usually more dangerous when they come out than when they went in.

The United States was the first place to enact three strikes laws, and hence they represent the best opportunity to study its success. Undoubtedly the state with the harshest three strikes law, California implemented a system in 1994 which usually requires a sentence of 25 years to life for a third offence. According to Wikipedia, ‘early studies of three strikes laws found negligible impacts on overall recidivism rates amongst the general population’, although the Wikipedia page does acknowledge room for error in the cited statistic. Furthermore, ‘incidence of murder, rape, and aggravated assault has risen from 2002 to 2008′ in California. Givcn that this information is now widely available, the government’s decision to implement similar laws in New Zealand must either be due to ignorance about their lack of effectiveness, or else a cynically populist move to satisfy a woefully misinformed voter base.

One of the most significant problems with the ‘sensible sentencing’ model for reducing crime is that violent offenders are not rational agents. The typical offender is male, often of low intelligence and poor education, has a family history of ineffectual parenting and often emotional, physical or sexual abuse, and comes from a background of poverty, poor housing, instability, association with delinquent peers and unemployment. Given what we know about the psychology of violent offenders, it is unreasonable to expect the average convict to make the kinds of rational decisions that a theorist might expect.

This strong correlation between a person’s background and their likelihood of  criminality has controversial implications: If the circumstances surrounding a individual’s birth largely determine whether they will become a criminal, then it is unfair to punish them for something that is largely outside of their control. Better to fix the underlying cause of their behaviour instead of punishing them for exhibiting symptoms of deeper societal illness.

‘As a society we create our criminals; we, as a whole, are responsible.’
— Shirley Smith

Separate from the attempts to lower recidivism, another common rationale for harsher sentences is retribution. Such arguments place emphasis on victims of violent attacks, and a need to ‘see justice served’ by exacting revenge upon the perpetrators. However it is difficult to see how the desire for vengeance is worth the price. The average cost to the taxpayer of keeping an offender in prison for a year is nearly $100,000 (which may be contrasted with the average cost per day of an offender on a community based sentence of $10.04). Furthermore, New Zealand is already second only to the US in the proportion of prisoners to the total population, and is facing a looming crisis because we do not have enough prison beds. A desire for revenge against murderers and rapists is understandable, but we must not lost sight of the fact that while violence is a cost to the community, the incarceration of offenders is also extremely costly. If longer sentences lead to an increase in violent crime, significant costs to the taxpayer and one of the largest incarcerated populations per capita in the world, is the satisfaction of our base desire for revenge worth it? And if so, how many more violent crimes should we be willing to allow per year in order to ensure that convicted criminals are satisfactorily punished?

Whilst I agree with conservative ‘sensible sentencing’ advocates we ought to do everything we can to prevent violence, imposing harsher sentences has been shown time and time again to actually worsen the situation. As Shirley Smith pointed out, ‘the threat of imprisonment does not deter, and prison does not reform’.

Further reading:

• ‘On the ‘Three Strikes’ Policy and the SAS in Kabul’
• ‘Act MP Accused of Misleading Public on ‘Three-Strikes” Effectiveness’
• ‘Police, judge attack three strikes policy’
• ‘The Effects of Prison Sentences on Recidivism’
• ‘Does Prison Harden Inmates? A Discontinuity-based Approach’
• ‘Blameless Babes’ – Dame Sian Elias’ Shirley Smith Address

What happened? You used to be cool. We used to see each other all the time. Like when I was with my mates after a good drinking session and needed junk food, or when I was pulling an all-nighter to finish an essay and wanted caffeine, or just ’cause I was running on a weird student sleeping pattern and needed an extra dinner ingredient after midnight. And it wasn’t just that you were open 24 hours, either. You had lots of great points: You had nearly anything I wanted stocked on your shelves, and your staff were so very helpful (for people who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else in the world), and your music… well, okay, your music was always fucking unbearable, I’ll admit.

But overall we forgave each other our faults. I could ignore your terrible music, and you never said anything about that time I accidentally took a muffin without paying for it. We learned to accept our differences.

But then you changed.

It began when you said you’d drop the 24-hour opening time. Many of us were incredulous. We couldn’t believe that you were going to get rid of your most beloved feature. Was it us? What did we say? Whatever it was, we swore we didn’t mean it. We just wanted everything to go back to how it was before. You didn’t listen. Against the largely silent protests of Upper Riccarton’s nocturnal comunity, you cut your hours and with them our hearts.

Now I know it’s not entirely your fault. Things were said and done on both sides. You’re not to blame for my decision to move to a flat more than a minute’s walk away. Not having you as a neighbour any more has changed my attitude towards you, I admit. I know I don’t visit you anywhere near as often as I used to, and I’m sorry. But I think part of the reason I no longer visit is because it’s too hard. It just tears me up inside to see what you’ve done to yourself, what you’ve become.

Shortly after I left, you began a major face-lift. You never said why: I had always thought you were beautiful, and didn’t understand why you had to change. But apparently change you must, so I resigned myself to it, and to the knowledge that visiting you would be slightly more annoying for the next six months or so. So I stuck by you through the store makeover, hoping that when you emerged from your scaffolding and drop-cloths, you would be as beautiful as a butterfly emerging from its chrysallis, free of its old caterpillar form.

Instead we got – well, you know what we got.

…I guess the new store’s kinda alright. I mean, the pick’n'mix nuts are gone, and the aisles seem thinner and harder to navigate, and these days I feel like you’re fucking always out of stock of whatever it is I’m looking for. But on the whole, it’s not really much worse than it was before. The problem is, it’s not really much better either. If I sit through six months of the type of shit you pulled while you were having your big makeover, I expect a bloody nice transformation. Instead, you just shifted everything around a bit and gave it a wee polish. I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something here, maybe you had some private reason for changing that you’re not sharing with us (self-esteem issues after I left, perhaps?). Whatever your reason, I felt jipped, like my loyalty had been rewarded with a cold shoulder.

So you must agree with me when I say that recently, our relationship has been strained. Where once I had openly professed my love and adoration for you, I began to avoid you, and even once or twice caught myself saying that I hated visiting you. I can barely believe it myself. How did it come to this?

The last straw came this week. On Friday night I visited you to pick up some booze and some flat supplies. It was all good, I managed to get in and out with minimum hassle, and didn’t stop to chat. It wasn’t until the next day that I checked my receipt to transfer cash from the flat account that I noticed that you had charged me $28.56 for the Mac’s Gold 15-pack. Having spent five minutes hunting out the best deal I distinctly remembered that they had been priced at $18 (with $15 for a 12-pack, both on special), which I thought was plenty expensive enough. I don’t want to sound bittter or anything, but if I pay $28 for a 15-pack of Mac’s Gold then they better be gold fucking plated. I have no idea whether it was spite or merely lack of attention, but you overcharged me, Countdown Church Corner. You overcharged me ten bucks.

Last night I dropped by again to ask you what you had to say about the matter. Maybe you could refund me the money with minimum fuss, and we could both put this unpleasant episode behind us. Alas, it was not to be. The person I talked to looked like she wanted to get the fuck outta that store twice as bad as everyone else (who could blame her?). I asked her about my beer price. She acted surprised, and fetched someone from the liquor section. Whilst he did not specifically remember the specials from last Friday, he claimed that $28 was the regular price for the Mac’s 15-pack, and perhaps only the 12-pack had been discounted. Perhaps I had selected the wrong one? I thought this was preposterous, as I clearly remembered comparing the specials on both amounts and choosing the 15. However I said little, not wanting to disturb the poor minimum-wage earners. They recommended that I talk to the Liquor manager the following day, and left me to check out this week’s specials, which included 15-packs of Mac’s Gold for $24. Save $4.

I was so sure you had overcharged me, but now I don’t know what to think. You’ve messed with my head one too many times, Countdown Church Corner. The hours change was all my heart could take, but then you dashed it against the twin rocks of crappy store makeovers and inconsistent beer pricing. I’m sorry, but I can’t take it anymore. I think I need some time alone to think about our relationship, and whether we have a future together.

If you need to contact me for any reason, I’ll be at fuckin’ Pac-n-Slave.

Yours no longer,

Richard

This isn’t the first Steinlager spin-off. They currently also sell the Harvey Keitel-endorsed ‘Steinlager Pure’, for those who like Steinlager ‘Classic’ but feel they aren’t being charged enough for it.

Steinlager Edge is ‘New Zealand’s first mid-strength, full flavoured premium lager’ – ‘mid-strength’ indicating that it is 3.5% alcohol-by-volume (ABV). This places it squarely between light beer (2% alcohol) and premium full-strength beer (5%). However, its price is similar to ‘classic’ Steinlager, meaning that if you buy Steinlager Edge then you are essentially spending the same amount of money for less alcohol content. If you only want to be 70% as boozed as you usually get but you really like paying premium beer prices then this is the beer for you. That sounds a little strange to me, but I guess I can understand it.

However, the name Lion Nathan have chosen for their new product surprises me. What is it supposed to be the ‘edge’ of? As a mid-strength beer, it lies squarely between light beer and premium beer. It is marketed at busy professionals who drink beer because they like the taste but don’t like to get boozed. There is no manner in which this beer is edgy. I can only imagine that its name is intended to reflect that the beer sits tenuously on the edge of what New Zealand consumers are willing to pay for.

Geoff Griggs of the Society of Beer Advocates (There’s a Society of Beer Advocates? What are their meetings like?) says the move is a ‘logical extension of a very powerful brand’ but questioned whether there would be much demand among thirsty Kiwis. ‘Traditionally, mid-strength has not been very strong in New Zealand because our mainstream beers are only typically 4 per cent, so you’re only talking half a per cent less than our mainstream beers,’ he said. ‘That said, if you’re a premium lager drinker who wouldn’t be seen dead drinking those old- fashioned New Zealand draughts, then a 3.5 per cent option for drivers or lunchtime drinkers does make some sense.’^[1]

Will there really be a market in New Zealand for a lager that provides significantly less alcohol content for about the same price? Anyone want to place a bet on whether it will still be around in two years’ time?