Three strikes law for burglary - Act leader

Burglars needed to be hit with the same "three strikes" automatic prison punishment as violent crime to stop burglary becoming a career option.

Act leader Jamie Whyte told an audience of 16 people in Tauranga today that he wanted to repeat the success of the "three strikes" policy for violence in which no one had so far been sentenced to prison for violent crimes on a third offence.

Jamie Whyte - ACT party leader

Mr Whyte said that with the police clearing 15 per cent of burglaries, there was a high chance that burglars would not be caught, and the statistics showed that only a tiny fraction were going to prison.

He said reported burglaries were running at 55,000 a year but using Treasury's estimates he said the real figure was 115,000 because most burglaries were only reported for insurance purposes and a lot of people did not carry insurance.

Mr Whyte said he was copying the three strikes policy of Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair where burglaries had fallen by a third. Labour and the Conservatives' tough stance involving sending more people to prison had seen overall crime fall to 40 per cent of what it had been in the peak of the 1990s.

Act was calling for an automatic three year prison sentence with no parole for a third conviction of burglary.

He said only 41 people were on their second strike for violent crime and none had been imprisoned for a third offence. Four thousand were on their first strike.

"This strong suggests that three strikes has a deterrent effect."

Today's meeting was held in the Tauranga Yacht and Power Boat Club. The small turnout was partly explained by Tauranga candidate Stuart Pedersen saying that in his door knocking, every third person had already voted.