Judge’s sentencing plan draws mixed reaction

Press, 12 October 1985, Page 27

Judge’s sentencing plan draws mixed reaction

PA Auckland The police and the law profession are at odds over an Auckland judge’s suggestion that criminate should be sentenced in chambers. A South Auckland Judge, Mr Ken Mason, said sentencing in open court put the offender on public disWhile sentences should still be announced in court, reasons that promote a particular sentence did not have to be public information, he said. He envisages a system whereby the offender, judge, probation and social workers, and friends and family would meet in chambers to discuss the sentence. The offender would have the chance to comment on his punishment. The president of the Auckland District Law Society, Mr Colin Pidgeon,

said the proposal was imaginative and had much in its favour. He went one step further, to suggest that the victim should also share in the discussion on sentencThe president of the Criminal Bar Association, Mr Peter Williams, said tragic aspects of explanations for offending were better told behind doors. “There’s a lot to be said for it, as there is a certain ghoulish interest in the mechanics of the sentence in the courts today,” he said. However, the national president of the Police Officers’ Guild, Assistant Commissioner, Mr Jim Glynn, said the less the public knew about broad reasons for sentences, the more apprehensive it would be about the fairness of the system. Mr Glynn said the guild

would support any moves to promote fair sentencing, as long as they did not clog a court system already showing “serious sluggishness.” It was time the Government and the courts placed the interests of victims first, he said. The Judge’s proposals could lead to inaccurate information being presented to the courts. ' Probation reports are now written without contributions from police and without being seen by police, he said. “Probationers tend to nominate their own referees or those who will speak well of them. Often police have stacks of information on offenders relevant to sentencing but this is kept out of the system.”'

The director of Social Welfare, Mr Robin Wilson, said many features of Judge

Mason’s proposal were already used successfully in the Children and Young Persons Court The proposal received cautious approval from the president of the Council for Civil Liberties, Mr Bill Hodge. “Secret sentencing takes away the public participation and satisfaction that I think they deserve,” he said. “I support his concern for dealing with offenders but the community has the right to know the reasons behind the sentence.” The national president of the Maori Wardens’ Association, Peter Walden, backed Judge Mason’s comments “100 per cent” Public sentencing was a demeaning process that achieved nothing toward rehabilitating offenders, he said.