Rotorua's ban on criminals in CBD 'unlawful', QC says

Rotorua District Council's new bylaw banning repeat offenders from the inner city is unlawful and unlikely to go ahead, a top lawyer has said.

Councillors for the North Island tourist town voted last night 12-1 to ban people with five or more convictions for dishonesty from its central business district.

But Auckland Queen's Council Rodney Harrison said Kaitaia shopkeepers made similar arrangement with police about 10 years ago. That arrangement was challenged by civil liberties groups in the High Court at Auckland.

When the solicitor general gave an opinion the plan was unlawful and police agreed to withdraw the scheme.

Dr Harrison said it appeared the Rotorua plan was exactly the same in terms of legality as the Kaitaia scheme.

"Indeed it seems to me still more fundamentally flawed legally because I do not believe that it is legally possible for an individual to trespass in or on an entire town or central business district.

"The city council is not in, my view, the lawful occupier of the entire town or central business district such that it can order some one out of it."

The council also voted for police to regularly report to the financial and planning committee on the scheme's effectiveness, and review it after three years.

Mayor Kevin Winters said the ban had the overwhelming support of local businesses, who wanted an end to the thefts, assaults, shoplifting and other street crime on Rotorua streets.

"Is crime an issue? Yes, it's an issue in the CBD. We are trying to give police more tools," the mayor said.

The council had already passed similar legislation at the Government Gardens, Kuirau Park and the Lakefront. The CBD ban would extend this, he said.

"It's a twist on the old 80/20 rule - 80 per cent of the crime is being done by 20 per cent of the people. Only in this case, it's more like 95/5. It's a very small number of people," Mr Winters said.

Surveillance cameras would be staffed by citizen volunteers, who knew who to look for and could pin-point offenders as soon as they entered the CBD area, he said.

But Christchurch University criminologist Greg Newbold laughed at the proposal and the "naivety" of the councillors.

"You can't just ban people out of existence. People have tried it before and it just doesn't work."

As well as being an infringement of basic human rights, the law was unenforceable, Mr Newbold said.

"What if someone who isn't on their 'banned people' list but has five or more convictions comes into town? You would have to question the common sense of the council. I wonder what on earth they are going to achieve," he said.

However, Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar congratulated the mayor and the council for the ban.

He cited the 'three strikes' and 'broken windows' systems in the United States as models to follow.

"Basically their policies are holding people responsible from crime one," he said. "In New Zealand, we have offenders with two or three hundred offences walking around on the streets."

Banning convicted criminals from town would make people think twice about committing crimes, he said.

"We need to force them to start thinks seriously, to make some choices in life. If they are going to be denied access to the city, well, that's tough. Those amenities have been paid for by hard work of law-abiding citizens."

- NZPA