Death penalty proposed at Grey Power meeting

Grey Power members were fired up during a meeting with the Sensible Sentencing Trust, with one elderly woman calling for the return of the death penalty.

"If we haven't got the changes we want by 2010, we'll ask for that," trust founder Garth McVicar told the packed Netball North Harbour meeting room last week.

Military training for everyone who leaves school without a job, consistency in sentencing, strict parole guidelines, the right to defend one's property, and a review of the youth justice system were other issues the group champions.

The group opposed the anti-smacking bill recently passed by Parliament.

"Ban smacking, build prisons," said Mr McVicar.

The Napier native told the group how the murders of Teresa Cormack, 6, and Colleen Burrows, 15, both in his hometown, affected him.

"I have four daughters and it horrified me," he said. "But I didn't do anything."

When 13-year-old Karla Cardno was raped and murdered by Paul Dally in 1989 her stepfather Mark Middleton was convicted for threatening to kill Dally.

Mr McVicar supported Mr Middleton and organised a rally protesting against his sentencing.

It was a success, with 16,000 people turning out at 67 courthouses. Mr Middleton was given a suspended sentence.

Out of that experience, the Sensible Sentencing Trust was born, but Mr McVicar said he wasn't prepared for the backlash.

"I was called a redneck and racist. The politically correct ostracised us."

Now the Napier-based trust has become the largest public funded organisation promoting victims rights and justice reform, boasting they have more members than many political parties, with some approaching the trust to join forces.

"But we won't become political," said Mr McVicar.

"We are provocative, we have to be. We've got to call it the way we see it."

Since the group formed, Teresa Cormack's mother Kelly Piggott told them her daughter's killer had 78 previous offences, but his DNA could not be taken because of privacy laws. Mr McVicar said the trust pushed a law change to get DNA from anyone with a jail sentence longer than two years. "Kelly's law has seen three historic murders solved on DNA in the last 18 months."

After the home-invasion murder of Reporoa farmer Beverly Bouma in 1998 the trust pushed for longer sentences for murderers from 10 years to 17 years with a minimum parole period.

As a result, he said, the RSA triple murderer William Bell was given 30 years non-parole.

Last year Mr McVicar visited Finland and was impressed with their prison regime.

"It was minus 22 degrees but inmates were out breaking rocks. Finland has 12 percent reoffending, New Zealand has 86 percent."

A visit to an Arizona jail showed him a system of chain gangs and tent cities.

He said living in the sweltering tent city, where there are 'no drugs, no cell phones, and no gangs' for just 24 hours convinces offenders they don't want to return. The recidivism rate of 17 percent is convincing, said Mr McVicar.

Mr McVicar said New Zealand prisons are 'offender friendly'.

He told the meeting he was born in 1951 when New Zealand was one of the safest countries in the world.

He said 56 years later, New Zealand is one of the most violent countries.

"The country can't turn itself around with current policies.

"We need to draw the line in the sand. If you cross it, there?ll be consequences."

- © Fairfax NZ News