{"id":17878,"date":"2026-07-08T15:30:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T03:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17878"},"modified":"2026-07-08T15:30:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T03:30:48","slug":"act-announces-three-strikes-policy-for-burglary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17878","title":{"rendered":"ACT announces Three Strikes policy for burglary"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">ACT want to impose a Three Strikes regime for burglary, requiring a minimum three-year prison sentence with no parole for anyone convicted of burglary three times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Announcing the policy, ACT deputy leader Nicole McKee said someone&#8217;s home should be the one place they feel safe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;In 2025, 184,000 New Zealanders were victims of burglary. Burglary is a recidivist crime, with the majority of people released from prison for burglary sent back to prison within two years. Nearly three-quarters are resentenced. Around one in four burglary victims have already been burgled before,&#8221; McKee said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;Judges keep using their leeway to give burglars more chances, and the burglars keep reoffending.&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\"><strong class=\"font-serif-text-medium\">The policy would see:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text leading-normal [&amp;_li&gt;ol.list]:!mt-4 [&amp;_li&gt;ol.list]:!pb-0 [&amp;_li&gt;ul.list]:!mt-4 [&amp;_li&gt;ul.list]:!pb-0 [&amp;_li]:!mb-8 [&amp;_ol]:pb-4 [&amp;_ul]:pb-4\">\n<ul class=\"list [&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">\n<li class=\"\">Anyone convicted of burglary three times receive a minimum sentence of three years in prison, with no parole, home detention, and no chance of early release.<\/li>\n<li class=\"\">It would apply both to someone facing their third conviction, or to someone facing a single conviction of three or more counts of burglary.<\/li>\n<li class=\"\">An aggravated burglary would trigger a strike under the new policy and the existing Three Strikes regime for violent crime.<\/li>\n<li class=\"\">Judges would still retain full discretion to impose any sentence between the three-year minimum and the 10-year maximum.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">McKee said the policy was not &#8220;primarily&#8221; about deterring crime, but preventing it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;Imprisoning repeat burglars will protect New Zealanders from a small group of offenders who have shown, time after time, that they have no respect for other people&#8217;s homes or property. They will not be able to victimise us from a jail cell.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;When someone does the right thing, gets up and goes to work to unlock their own potential, they shouldn&#8217;t have to worry about some deadbeat invading their home and taking their hard-earned property.&#8221; McKee said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">McKee said that of the 1800 people convicted of burglary last year about 925 went to prison and not all of them would be eligible for a third strike.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Based on those figures, she said the policy would likely cost about $200 million for one year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;Another thought to this as well though, which makes it harder to model, is that once a person is locked up for three years, they are not out there creating the same harm and doing the same crime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;We fully expect the number of burglaries would drop, which in turn would mean that the number of people going to prison should drop.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Asked if a &#8220;warning&#8221; was enough to rehabilitate repeat offenders, McKee said she &#8220;would hope so&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;I think eventually we will get to a point where only the hardened career burglars will continue to carry on until they get to a point where they cannot any longer because they&#8217;re locked behind bars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;We want to try and give people those opportunities and putting them in prison so they&#8217;re not creating more harm means that they will get an opportunity while they&#8217;re in there to change their ways,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">McKee said there was &#8220;no need&#8221; to speak to her coalition partners on the policy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a campaign election policy but I would feel that our coalition would get in behind this because they have gotten behind ACT&#8217;s ideas throughout this term of government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;When we introduced three strikes, when we put sentencing caps, when we looked at aggravating factors for sentencing, we&#8217;ve had support amongst the coalition,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">The broader\u00a0<a class=\"underline-brand-hover visited:text-foreground-secondary hover:visited:text-foreground-primary\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/politics\/536600\/new-three-strikes-regime-passed-into-law\">Three Strikes regime<\/a>\u00a0was reinstated in late 2024 after Labour abolished it in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Source: RNZ<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ACT want to impose a Three Strikes regime for burglary, requiring a minimum three-year prison sentence with no parole for anyone convicted of burglary three times. Announcing the policy, ACT deputy leader Nicole McKee said someone&#8217;s home should be the one place they feel safe. &#8220;In 2025, 184,000 New Zealanders were victims of burglary. Burglary [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17880,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17878\/revisions\/17880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}