Kerre Woodham: How have we become a place where wants and desires of offenders count more than victims?

Incredibly, despite the fact that this is the Government that seems hell bent on not prosecuting anybody or not putting people into prison, the number of monthly crimes recorded in Auckland has increased by 19.1 percent.

If you look at 2021 to 22 and compare it to 2017 to 2019, 2020 being taken out of the mix because of lockdowns, Waikato and Nelson crime increased by more.

The frequency of crime in Waikato increased by 20.5 percent, Nelson 19.9 percent. There were some parts of the country that saw a decrease. The West Coast dropped off 22 percent, but overall the number of crimes recorded in New Zealand has increased by more than 15 percent.

I don't think this will come as any surprise to you, will it?

If you don't know someone who has been a victim of crime, if you haven't been a victim of crime, I'm surprised. You'd be you're very lucky.

You will know from the headlines in the papers that crime is on the increase but the prison population is down and the Government will tell you that's a good thing. But is it?

It's only down, really, because people who should be in prison aren't being sent there.

You might have heard police officers and former police officers on this show telling us how dispiriting it is to bring a prosecution against an individual, only to see the offender convicted and then walk from court. It happens with minor offenses.  And all of that work, and all of that preparation, and all of that paperwork that takes you away from being out on the street counts for nought once you get inside the courtroom.

It happens with minor offenses, and it happens with the biggies as well.

How have we come to a place where the wants and desires of the offenders count for more than their victims? Why are their lives worth more than the lives of the innocent people that they injure and destroy.

I totally understand the reasons for keeping low level offenders out of prison. I absolutely get that and I support that. And I totally understand that rehabilitation is a vital tool to try to generate long term changes of behaviour that ultimately will benefit us all, rather than just locking people up and throwing away the key.

But we're talking about rapists and killers. Somebody who drives a vehicle drunk, having been convicted five previous times, knows exactly what they're doing, the risks they are taking.

So when you've got rapist and killers having home detention to allow for the rehabilitation, where the hell does that leave their victims and where the hell does that leave us as a community?

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