Alexander Marc: Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Alexander Marc: Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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MARC ALEXANDER(United Future) 
: 
I rise for United Future in support of the Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill. The bill before us that provides for a regime of extended supervision for dangerous sex offenders is—at least in intent—timely. In the very near future a number of child sex offenders sentenced under the old sentencing regime will be coming up for parole and eventual release. Under the new Sentencing Act the worst type of sex offenders to which the new regime applies will have received preventive detention and the justice system maintains control over them potentially for the rest of their natural lives—if not in actuality through the imposition of that penalty. But as the Minister has already mentioned at present we face the situation where a number of offenders—there is not expected to be a huge number—will slip through the cracks and soon find themselves out in the community free to offend again which almost certainly they will.  
A bill of this sort is necessary and that is why we will support it through to a select committee. Further we recognise the time-sensitive nature of the bill. The longer we leave it the greater the opportunity there is for offenders to be left unsupervised in the community. That is why we will support the Minister’s motion to have the Justice and Electoral Committee sit during House hours.  
The bill provides for a regime of supervision for child sex offenders to take place for a maximum of 10 years although the exact supervision time is left to the discretion of the courts. Given my experience with the courts’ use of maximum penalties I fear that many offenders may not actually receive 10 years worth of supervision after they exit the prison system. In many cases they may need even more. How often have we seen examples of child sex offenders who will display a pattern of pathological offending for their entire lives? If we set 10 years as the maximum how long will they actually get? Probably 4 or 5 years. My view is that we ought to set a higher maximum given the expectation that the courts will generally apply only about two-thirds of the potential sentence or less. I will be interested to hear the views of experts at the select committee on the appropriate time that such offenders ought to be monitored for and how they should be monitored.  
Some have complained that the new regime breaches a number of provisions in the Bill of Rights—namely the double-jeopardy rule that an offender ought not to be punished twice for the same offence; the principle against retrospective law that offenders ought to know what penalty they are in for when they commit the offence and the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. The Attorney-General found that the bill before us breached the Bill of Rights in those ways and that such breaches were not demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society.  
I beg to differ as does much of the public. In my view such limits on offenders are completely and utterly justifiable given the severity of the offences committed. They are justifiable because they must be weighed up against the rights of others to be free from the sick and perverse violence that those offenders carry out on our most vulnerable. They are justifiable because it is exactly that kind of narrow thinking about the absolute rights of those offenders that all too often produces the absurdities of our justice system that frustrate so many New Zealanders in their search for justice. They are justifiable for all victims of sexual violence who find that their rights as victims have been ignored in favour of the rights of those who have so grievously breached ours in the first place. They are justifiable because implicit in the social contract is an expectation of the State that when we as individuals give up our right to exact personal revenge on those who have wronged us the State will deliver that justice for us and against those who have harmed us.  
Just how are the parents of children who have been offended against supposed to feel knowing that their child’s rapist will soon be out and that there is nothing that can be done about that short of them taking up the shotgun themselves? We have only to look at Mark Middleton’s anger and rage to understand exactly what parents will feel. That is why I support this new amendment because it goes a very small way towards resetting that balance. It is a recognition that sometimes offenders no longer deserve all the protections and rights that all other innocent citizens have had simply because they have trampled all over ours. 
There are a number of other matters in the bill that I would also like to comment on briefly. Section 86 of the Sentencing Act is to be amended to clarify that in setting minimum non-parole periods the safety of the community is actually taken into account—a seemingly obvious factor to account for when determining any prison term—and United Future applauds that change.  
United Future also supports the use of this bill to plug a number of holes regarding home detention and deferrable sentences. Presently we see many cases in which offenders provided with leave to apply for home detention are also granted a deferral of sentence while they apply to the Parole Board. However they will often wait until the end of that deferral period before applying for home detention. Of those who do about 40 percent are finally turned down. This situation clearly casts significant doubt on the safety of allowing such convicted offenders deferred sentences in the first place.  
The bill addresses this issue in a number of ways. Firstly sentence deferrals are being granted far too easily. In large part this has been due to the courts’ interpretation of the phrase “special circumstances.” Section 101 will be amended to provide that deferrals are granted only in extraordinary circumstances. The effect of that is that sentence deferrals will be granted in considerably fewer cases. Secondly the bill clarifies the courts’ role in determining applications for leave to apply for home detention. Until now the courts have interpreted section 97 of the Sentencing Act as narrowing their discretion in deciding that leave to apply should be granted in the normal course of events. Clearly this ought not to be the case. One need only look at the recent case of Darren McDonald to be convinced of that. Thus we are pleased to see that the courts’ role has been clarified and widened to emphasise the fact that they have a sifting role to apply to home detention applicants.  
This bill is far from perfect but it is a step in the right direction. One of the main problems already discussed prior to this debate is the mental health aspect. We have taken away the ability to incarcerate people in institutions with the false promise of community care that simply cannot do the job. In return we have had police having to play psychologist and the court system having to play psychologist and psychiatric nanny in putting these people in prison—a place where some of them simply do not belong. We have to revisit how we actually protect our citizens from these individuals outside of a prison environment. I think we need to revisit the mental health aspect and the opportunity of putting in place institutions that can account for these individuals.  
I commend this bill to the House but I trust that the select committee will take a well-meaning but flawed bill and return to the House a bill worthy of the victims it seeks to protect in the first place.