Friday, August 16, 2019

Time for a change to false imprisonment by design in New Zealand

Follows details of efforts made in the States to even out a false imprisonment rate of around 4%. Like NZ, people of colour, no doubt along with those from the lower socioeconomic stream, the less educated and the mentally unwell, all get the rough end of the stick in cases of false imprisonment. Fortunately in NZ the 'plea bargaining' is benign compared to the States where 18% of the innocent plead guilty. Something which can only happen because of pressure from police and prosecutors. These figures transposed onto the incarcerated in NZ would mean around 400 persons falsely imprisoned for all crimes. Not just the controversial murder cases that become well known here

We still have nothing of this type of initiative happening in NZ and the Criminal Conviction Review process, once implemented, won't be as active as police and prosecutors are in certain American states at sorting out false imprisonment. It needs to be remembered that false imprisonment is not accidental. It wasn't in the Thomas case or any of the others. It was deliberate and no one in authority paid a price for that. They got away with it without even a slap on the hand.

https://time.com/wrongly-convicted/?xid=fbshare&fbclid=IwAR0OGBnCXHXGEYzqRD18j-mKeclzEi-mZcSo-o355644Pp97loZULuww3zQ


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