Something is seriously wrong with our justice system when a brutal child rapist is released into the community after serving just seven years of his light ten year sentence despite an assessment of his likelihood of re-offending being described as “a high risk of violent offending and a moderate to high risk of sexual offending“.
“Raurangi Mark Marino was jailed in 2012 for what the Parole Board called a “particularly horrendous” rape of a five-year-old girl in which he used “significant violence”.
Marino, who was 16 at the time, was drunk and high when he came across the child in an unlocked caravan at a Turangi campground in December 2011.
He then beat her, choked her unconscious and raped her with such violence she lost four teeth and suffered internal injuries. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.”
Newshub
Why did the Parole Board let this young man back into the community? Was it Kelvin Davis’s strategy to reduce prison numbers? Or was it because the felon’s behaviour is entrenched during his incarceration? Both arguments fail at the first hurdle of protecting communities. No one considered the rights of the innocent.
“Marino’s release sparked outrage, and a petition was launched to keep him “behind bars for life”. At the time of publishing, 120,531 people have signed it.
“Why should a convicted violent offender, who chose to brutally rape an innocent five-year-old child be given the right, the privilege of early release?
Why does Marino deserve his freedom when he stole everything from an innocent victim and her family?” the petition asks.”
“In a statement released in October, 2019, the Parole Board told Newshub that public safety is the “paramount consideration” in every decision.
“We have parole as a proven way to reduce reoffending, by closely supervising an offender’s reintegration to society, rather than releasing them at the end of their sentence when oversight is no longer legally possible,” a spokesperson said.”
A justice system that doesn’t protect us from convicted criminals even though they have done their time is a broken justice system.
We are too soft on crime, and our do-gooder approach to perpetrators – whose rights often supersede those of their jailers – does not protect us, and in fact, infringes basic human rights.
The first Ministry of Justice survey of 8,000 people during March to September 2018 disclosed that 29% of respondents had been victims of crime in the last 12 months but did not report the crime, meaning actual crime is understated in the police statistics.
“The survey found 1.77m crimes were committed in the past year but only a fraction – 256,000 – were then reported to police and recorded officially.
Burglary, harassment and fraud were the most common crimes committed in New Zealand, and Māori people were more likely to be victims of crime, with 37% of indigenous respondents reporting being the victim of a criminal incident in the past year.
Men and women were equally likely to be victims of crime (at 29% each), but women were more likely to experience domestic and sexual violence from a partner, with 34% of women reporting having experienced one or more incidents of sexual violence in their lifetime.
People over 65 years were the least likely to be victims of crime, with just 18% reporting an experience, while people aged 20-29 were at the highest risk, with 40% reporting an experience in the past year.
James Swindells, the head of research at the justice ministry, said 68% of crimes were perpetrated against people, while 32% were against property. People living in the three major cities of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch all had the same likelihood of being a victim.”
The Guardian
Violent crime is on the increase in South Auckland.
“South Auckland leaders want the government to step in and help after a spate of violence in their community this year.
Since March, there have been four people shot dead, and more than half a dozen other shootings in South Auckland.
Over the weekend a man died after an assault in Otahuhu on Saturday night, and a man is in hospital after being stabbed in a Manukau nightclub.
Otara and Papatoetoe town centres’ manager Rana Judge said the violence was increasing.
“You know it’s one or two incidents, it’s becoming like every week incidents and most of them are related to guns.”
He said it had become so common some had become desensitised to it.
“Honestly speaking it is scary,” he said.”
Radio NZ
Illegal gun owners are responsible for most gun-related crime and South Auckland gangs were not hindered by recent gun law reform: they were assisted by the acquisition of guns handed in to police and subsequently stolen by criminals.
“Counties Manukau Police crime manager Detective Inspector Tofilau Faa Va’aelua said the number of crimes was concerning, but arrests had been made and people were being held to account.
“We have arrested and charged every single offender responsible for each of the homicides in Counties Manukau which has been the subject of recent media reports.
“We have recovered every single firearm weapon allegedly used in each homicide case – which I must point out is a rarity but a great achievement by our investigators,” he said.
“We have recovered all except one of the firearms in all of the reported shootings where a victim has sustained gunshot injuries. Our staff have recovered a number of firearms in unrelated incidents during the course of their duty.”
However, he said police couldn’t “simply arrest our way out of the issue.”
“There needs to be a whole-of-community approach to these issues around organised crime, firearms, violence and family harm,” Mr Va’aelua said.
Actually, no! Shifting responsibility from the justice system to the community is simply a cop-out and exactly why violent crime is on the increase! The government has to step up.
“A number of these cases allegedly involved an element of organised crime and police continue to warn people about the dangers of getting involved with these kinds of criminal groups.”
Illegal gun ownership and organised crime is responsible for South Auckland’s increase in violent crime and this government has done nothing about that except put it into the too-hard basket.