‘Free ride’ for gangs over at midnight, Government says
Wednesday, 20 November 2024
The gang patches ban and other new laws targeting organised crime come into effect at midnight.
Gang insignia will be banned in all public places, courts can issue non-consorting orders, and police will have related increased arrest powers.
Labour has said the changes were unprincipled lawmaking, based on “populist” rhetoric rather than evidence or common sense.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith and Police Minister Mark Mitchell say “the free ride for gangs is over when the clock strikes midnight tonight”.
That’s when the Government’s new law cracking down on gangs comes into effect.
“Gang insignia will be banned in all public places, courts will be able to issue non-consorting orders, and police will be able to stop criminal gang members from associating and communicating, as committed to in the National, Act and NZ First coalition agreements,” the ministers said in a joint statement.
“To earn the right to wear a gang patch you have to have committed violent crime. There are a trail of tears and victims behind each one of those gang patches,” Goldsmith said.
He said greater weight will be given to gang membership during court sentencing, allowing courts to impose “more severe punishments”.
“Repeat offenders continually convicted of displaying their patches in public will be subject to a new court order, prohibiting them from possessing any gang insignia either in public or private for five years,” Goldsmith said.
On Wednesday, Goldsmith told RNZ that “being a member of a gang should always be an aggravating factor”.
“If you’re convicted of a crime, the judge looks at things that may be a reduction or discount if they’ve plead guilty. And then on the other side you’ve got some aggravating factors, and if you’re a member of a gang it’ll be an aggravating factor.”
He said the goal was to reduce the amount of victims of violent crime.
“Its all part of a broader effort that the idea is to reduce the number of victims at a target of 20,000 by 2029, obviously we want to get progress going faster than that.”
Goldsmith said a “clear signal” had been sent to gangs, and the government response was shifting.
“Remember that under the previous administration the focus was reducing the prison population irrespective of what was going on in our community.”
According to Ara Poutama Aotearoa’s recent annual report New Zealand had one of the highest imprisonment rates in the OECD.
Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb had said the law changes were unprincipled lawmaking, based on “populist” rhetoric rather than evidence or common sense.
“It is truly a dog’s breakfast of a bill. It is riding riding roughshod over democracy,” Webb said in September.
He questioned why Goldsmith had when in Opposition rallied against hate speech law, but was then rushing through Parliament this law banning symbols related to gangs.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell said
the establishment of district gang units meant police were ready to use the tools brought in by this legislation to “target disruptive gang events” and enforce the new gang laws.
“Gang members make up less than one-quarter of 1% of the New Zealand adult population, but are linked to 18% of all serious violent crime, 19% of all homicides and 23% of all firearms offences,” Mitchell said.
“Our message to the gangs is clear, the days of behaving like you are above the law are over.”