On-Line Sentencing Tracker For Worst Offenders

The Sensible Sentencing Trust has recently started up a new database on its website to make it easier to track down violent and sexual offenders sentences by sentence length which is linked to the main Offender Database page http://www.safe-nz.org.nz/Data/database.htm it is called the Database Sentencing Tracker which would also be excellent for journalists around the country to research. It gives information about sentences and what they mean.

Trust Spokesperson and creator of the Database Sentencing Tracker Ross Crosby says there will be more added to the Sentencing Tracker including New Zealand’s longest sentences for manslaughter or driving offences causing death, as well as the longest finite sentences for sex offenders and Paedophiles. The database carries links to the offender’s full record. "You won’t find a database like this which gives out free information anywhere else in New Zealand," Mr. Crosby said.

The Offender Database was started up in late 2001 by SST webmaster Peter Jenkins, with violent offenders and sex offenders listed on the same database en masse. The aim was to keep the public informed and to save victims of crime, also to put pressure on the government to place all the information on serious offenders publicly available online. In 2005 the Paedophile and Sex Offender Database and Violent Offender Database were developed, which split the two databases apart but could include both types of offenders on each database if they had committed both types of offences.

"We make no apologies for trying to protect innocent kiwis by having these databases online and keeping people informed about offenders," Mr. Crosby said. The trust cares about the safety of New Zealanders in the community and offenders in prison. It is certainly not trying to be vindictive or vigilante by doing this. The trust withholds offenders from the online database if they have name suppression, or if their convictions have been quashed.

Mr. Crosby formerly of Wellington was himself a victim of an unprovoked robbery and assault in central Wellington in 2001 and was introduced to the family conference process. “This was a complete and utter waste of time as the 15 year old youth who assaulted and robbed me twice failed to turn up to the conference. I wasn’t even allowed to discuss this individual case with friends or other people because under the law family group conferences must be kept confidential. I believe exposing people who have committed these sorts of crimes on our databases is the best way to rehabilitate them and prevent them from reoffending," Mr. Crosby said.

ENDS

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