Justice Dept 'soft'

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33933, 28 August 1975, Page 2

Justice Dept ' soft '

(N'.Z. Press AsauCiution) WELLINGTON. August 27. Justice Department leniency is creating a society of bashers, according to a former Justice Department pre-release hostel warden (Mr Joe Hunter). Mr Hunter, aged 60, and his wife Margaret, aged 55, were the victims of a brutal assault in their Newtown, Wellington, home early last Saturday morning. A burglar attacked Mr Hunter, knocking him to the ground and kicking his head. Mrs Hunter was also punched, and beaten, when

she came to her husband's help. Mr Hunter wants to see bashers taken up the hill and given a bit of their own medicine. “They should get the same punishment as this chap gave me,” he said in an interview last night. “They’ve got to do something like this. The punishment given today isn’t a deterrent for anything. “The Justice Department is far too lenient. Prerelease centres are a waste of public money,” he said. “The number of people who offend after being in

them is very disappointing. It’s no punish- • ment being at a prerelease centre. It’s just a piece of cake. “Prisons are no better. The prisons they are building now might as i well be for decent people to be protected in,” Mr Hunter said. Mr Hunter and his wife ran the pre-release centre for Arohata Borstal near Wellington for four years. “The worry’ and the frustration of the job gave me four heart attacks, so we gave it up,” he said. Police are still looking for the Hunters' assailant.