the town of \u014cp\u014dtiki following the homicide and funeral of a prominent Mongrel Mob leader<\/a>, although the town’s mayor has accused politicians of using the death as a political football.<\/p>\n“Just last week we saw a town where gang members effectively came and took control of an entire town,” Luxon said.<\/p>\n
“I have to say that is not the New Zealand we want to see, that is not the New Zealand we want to accept.”<\/p>\n
In announcing National’s plan to make gang membership an aggravating factor, he said it would be an initiative to “help restore law and order”.<\/p>\n
“Aggravating factors acknowledge that in some cases, the circumstances surrounding a crime may inflict greater harm upon their victims, and so warrant stronger sentences,” Luxon said in a statement accompanying the announcement.<\/p>\n
“National believes the visible presence of gangs in communities can lead to prolonged fear and intimidation for victims who have suffered at the hands of gang-related offences.”<\/p>\n
“By making gang membership an aggravating factor, judges will be required to consider this when determining a sentence,” Luxon said.<\/p>\n
“In practice, it means offenders who are known members of criminal gangs will likely face tougher sentences for crime.<\/p>\n
“National’s message is clear: If you choose to align yourself with a criminal gang and engage in criminal activities, you will face more severe consequences.”<\/p>\n
SOURCE RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
National would make membership of a gang an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing, so gang members convicted of an offence face tougher consequences for their crimes, party leader Christopher Luxon announced today. Luxon and National Party justice spokesperson Paul Goldsmith released the new policy at an event in Auckland today and said it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637","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=5637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5639,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions\/5639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}