Convicted murderers must stay in prison

It beggars belief that a prisoner can abscond and it takes three days for the public to become aware he is missing.

HOW is a serving convicted murderer and paedophile able to waltz out of prison and jump on a plane to Chile?

It beggars belief that a prisoner can abscond and it takes three days for the public to become aware he is missing.

Not good enough.

Phillip John Smith aka Traynor has an atrocious history of violence; he's bashed a man over the head with a shovel and murdered a father trying to protect his son from being abused by Smith; to name just two of his violent offences.

First of all we should be asking how such a violent man can be given leave from prison for three days and, secondly, with enough freedom to plan an escape; how the heck did he get a passport to be able to travel in the first place?

Surely police knew his birth name was Traynor not Smith when he was arrested.

This is a murderer; locked up to protect the rest of society and yet he wasn't being electronically monitored or wearing a GPS bracelet.

He has escaped the country, for goodness sake.

As a society, we need to be demanding answers from those responsible and an assurance this will never happen again.

Television advertisements tell us "ignore your fines and we will stop you leaving the country".

Yet a serving prisoner can use his "get out of jail free" card, jump on a plane and jet directly to a country which has no extradition agreement with New Zealand.

Smith's victims and society need answers as to how this could happen in today's world of technology and shared information.

Society needs to know the justice system can be relied on to protect everyone from people like Smith and keep them where they should be, locked up in clink.

Or what use is there in having prisons.

We might as well just leave the gates open or take a strong stance.

We must demand nothing less than GPS monitoring for these criminals.

After all they are serving a life sentence.