Latest news with #criminologist
RNZ News
16-07-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Criminologist fears electronic tagging of migrants 'going to get huge'
Victoria University criminologist Liam Martin. Photo: Supplied Introducing electronic tags for asylum seekers will open up a Pandora's box of issues, a criminologist says. The government has introduced legislation that would allow the electronic monitoring of migrants and asylum seekers who pose a security risk, or might run away. Liam Martin, who researches electronic monitoring at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University, said by some estimates New Zealand's criminal justice system already had the highest per capita rate in the world, or ran a close second to the US. "We've got about six-and-a-half thousand people on electronic monitoring in New Zealand, which is approaching the number that we have in prison. "In the UK and the US, immigration electronic monitoring is just exploding. It's getting massive in the UK, for example. As far as I can tell it, it operates on a scale that rivals criminal justice now. So what I foresee is thousands of people ending up on electronic monitoring in immigration eventually." Electronic tags - either ankle clamps or digital devices - had been promoted as a technology fix for rising prison populations, but ended up being an add-on, he said. The bill's wording seemed relatively contained, he added, but he predicted it was "going to get huge". "I just think there's a flood of social and political and economic forces that are pushing towards an explosion within immigration. We're intertwined with these things, so when I see things happening in the UK and happening in the US, I'm always thinking, 'so how long till we end up latching onto that?'. "It's a massive expansion of surveillance, another sphere of our lives that is becoming opened up to for-profit surveillance. It's in these niches where new surveillance systems intersect with old patterns of racial inequality that I think that you see the the more severe forms take hold." Martin, who has a multi-year grant from the Royal Society to research electronic monitoring, said the company that supplied electronic monitoring equipment for New Zealand criminal justice, Buddi, was already a major supplier of migrant tracking tech in the UK. The Immigration Amendment Bill is at select committee stage. Photo: RNZ Immigration lawyer Lucy Tothill said when it was first mentioned, electronic monitoring sounded positive as a step away from detention. "But the way that it's being drafted and discussed is quite loose, kind of leaves it open to a wider scope for monitoring asylum seekers. So my opinion on it is that it's hard to take a really strong position without knowing exactly what it will look like, but there are concerns about the privacy, security and human rights involved with monitoring asylum seekers. In particular, seeing the increased criminalisation of migrants and asylum seekers. "It's one thing to require people to report somewhere if you're worried about them absconding, it's quite another thing to know where they are at every minute of the day - that opens up other concerns about data collection and data use and what we do with all of the information about where people are and what they are doing with their day." Her concerns were on the potential numbers of people it could affect, and what grounds would prompt authorities to deem it necessary. Some devices used overseas have facial recognition and fingerprint scanning technology that require migrants to check in several times a day. A spokesperson for immigration minister Erica Stanford said it was an operational matter for Immigration New Zealand (INZ). She previously told RNZ that rough estimates were five asylum seekers and 130 migrants a year would be subject to electronic monitoring as an alternative to detention. "There will always be a number [of people] that we have a slight more concern about about being a flight risk or other things, and so then there is this intermediary option." INZ's border and funding immigration policy manager Stacey O'Dowd, said safeguards included judicial oversight and regular review. "It responds to a recommendation by Victoria Casey KC in her review in the detention of asylum seekers. Such conditions could only be imposed by a judge, who must be satisfied that the conditions are reasonable, proportionate, and the least restrictive option available. "Electronic monitoring conditions would last for three months and require an additional application to the judge for any extension of the initial term. A higher legal threshold is proposed for individuals claiming refugee or protected person status. This recognises the vulnerability of individuals seeking international protection." Implementation details would be worked through once the bill was passed, but would be tightly scoped and carefully controlled, she said. "The bill does not propose the use of facial recognition, fingerprint detection, or real-time tracking in relation to electronic monitoring. Monitoring would not involve constant surveillance; instead, alerts would only be triggered if someone crosses a boundary they are not permitted to leave." Corrections said it did not have information on other countries' rates of electronic monitoring. Its director of community operations David Grigg said there were 6276 monitored wearers, 1845 of whom were on bail, a slight increase from March last year when there were 6037 people wearing trackers, including 1786 on bail. The Immigration Amendment Bill is at select committee stage and public submissions close on 28 July. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
ABC News
08-07-2025
- ABC News
How the world reacted to Erin Patterson's guilty verdict
It's an extraordinary mystery that has captivated not just Australia, but the world. In 2023, five people sat down to a beef Wellington lunch — only two survived. One of them was Erin Patterson. The 50-year-old would be charged with murdering three relatives and attempting to murder a fourth by lacing their meals with poisonous death cap mushrooms. Over a mammoth trial, this case — and the tiny regional Victorian town of Morwell — were thrust into the global spotlight as a jury heard evidence from more than 50 witnesses. Overseas journalists joined local media in bringing the high-profile matter to an international audience, working to appease enormous global appetite for details of the infamous "mushroom murder". Associate professor Xanthe Mallett, a criminologist from Central Queensland University, told the ABC the trial had attracted extraordinary global interest. "I can't actually remember an Australian case which has garnered quite this much international attention," she said. On Monday, after 10 marathon weeks, Erin Patterson was found guilty of all charges. International publications immediately lit up with the news, with several sites including Reuters, CNN, the BBC, Washington Post and New York Times alerting the verdict. Many outlets also published reports on the trial's outcome, including a number of detailed explainers offering step-by-step accounts of the case. The BBC poured its resources into covering every moment of the trial's long-awaited outcome in a live blog that led its online page. The global media heavyweight also published an in-depth breakdown of the trial, which it said had "gripped the world". The report outlined the weeks of evidence, including that Patterson, a "self-described mushroom lover and amateur forager", had told the court the deaths were a "tragic accident". "But over nine weeks, the jury heard evidence suggesting she had foraged death cap mushrooms sighted in nearby towns and lured her victims to the fatal meal under the false pretence that she had cancer — before trying to conceal her crimes by lying to police and disposing of evidence," the BBC reported. Caroline Cheetham, who hosts The Trial of Erin Patterson podcast for Britain's Daily Mail, travelled to the remote town of Morwell to cover the story and spoke to the ABC about the case. "It just resonated. It resonated with an audience all over the world," she said outside court. Al Jazeera and the Washington Post also published detailed explainers of the almost two-month trial, described by the Post as "replete with family drama, fungal ingredients and allegations of deception". "The 'mushroom murder case', as it is known in Australia, transfixed the country," the Washington Post report said. Meanwhile an online piece from the New York Times detailed the "overwhelming media attention" on the case, which saw the jury carefully sequestered during deliberations. The US publication highlighted Patterson would now be facing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, adding it "was not immediately clear" when she would be sentenced.
BBC News
06-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Thousands of criminal cases collapsing due to missing or lost police evidence
Thousands of criminal cases - including some of the most serious violent and sexual offences - are collapsing every year because of lost, damaged or missing evidence, the BBC has than 30,000 prosecutions in England and Wales collapsed between October 2020 and September 2024, data from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) include 70 homicides and more than 550 sexual chiefs say not all the cases relate to lost evidence and the figures include situations where officers may not be able to find an expert witness or get a medical statement. However, it follows a series of damning reports about how police forces are storing evidence.A leading criminologist says the increase was largely "a resourcing issue" brought about by cuts to police forces throughout the ex-police officers told the BBC it was unsurprising and the amount of evidence they deal with is "overwhelming".When police forces build cases around defendants they hand a file to the CPS. But when the CPS cannot proceed to trial because police do not have the necessary evidence needed to secure a conviction - they record it in their data as an "E72".The BBC, alongside the University of Leicester, managed to obtain Freedom of Information (FOI) requests showing the number of E72s recorded between 2020 and 2024 at police forces in England and can include:Physical evidence - including forensic evidence - being lost, damaged or contaminated during storageDigital evidence, such as victim interview footage or body camera footage, being lostWitness statements or pathology reports not being made available by policeKey evidence not gathered from the crime sceneThe figures obtained by the BBC do not break down why cases have the data does suggest the number of cases recorded as an E72 are increasing, with a higher proportion of prosecutions failing to result in a conviction because of lost or missing evidence each 2020, a total of 7,484 prosecutions collapsed because of lost, missing or damaged evidence. In 2024, that had risen by 9%, to 8,180. 'It can really affect someone's mental state' When Kiera was just nine years old she gave an interview on camera to Lancashire Police describing the harrowing details of the sexual abuse she had been subjected to over several a few months later, she says, police officers told her mother they had lost the recording."It was really hard, because I sat there for hours and hours telling people what had happened to me and for that to be lost, I just thought like what's the point in doing it again?" said Kiera, now 19."They did want me to do it again, but I just couldn't go through with it at the time."It wasn't until nine years later, when Kiera was an adult, that she felt strong enough to provide her evidence October 2024, her perpetrators were jailed for almost 30 years for raping and sexually assaulting seven children, including her."It can really affect someone's mental state. It's also not protecting other people because these people then don't get convicted of crimes."A Lancashire Police spokesperson apologised for the lost interview disc in her case, and said, since 2015, it had introduced new processes to prevent similar issues happening again. 'The amount of it is overwhelming' Former police officers have told the BBC they are not surprised by the findings."It's [evidence] chucked all over the place," said one former officer."The amount of it is overwhelming… it's unsurprising it gets lost or damaged," another told the Carole McCartney, a criminologist and expert in evidence retention believes the loss of the dedicated Forensic Science Service (FSS) in 2012 is one of the reasons behind the growing proportion of cases affected by unavailable 2012, all police forces could send exhibits that needed storing or analysing to the service, but the government-owned company was closed that year after making large then, police forces have had to make their own evidence storage arrangements and contract private providers for forensic McCartney said she had witnessed an officer pull out what he called a "box of horrors" from underneath a desk which contained various pieces of un-catalogued evidence including a plastic bag with a broken wine bottle in it and a car numberplate. All Items held by the FSS from before 2012 were moved to a different facility - the National Forensics Archive just outside of Birmingham - that year, but that archive is for unsolved cases only and does not accept new in the archive were crucial in overturning the convictions of both Andrew Malkinson and Peter Sullivan. Its director Alison Fendley says that without a dedicated forensic service, police forces were currently suffering from a lack of resources and expertise at a local level."Police forces have got lots of other things to do - archiving is not their day job and there's so much material coming and going it must be difficult to keep on top of," she backlogs at courts, the growth in online crime and the increase in digital evidence such as body worn video are all adding to a growth in the amount of exhibits police have to National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) said police and the CPS worked together to ensure evidence was "gathered and presented in a timely manner, bringing offenders to justice and ensuring victims are safeguarded".It said the data obtained by the BBC refers to all evidence that is either missing or unavailable when a defendant is going to trial after being this could include situations where police cannot find an expert witness or may not be able to obtain a required medical statement. A number of recent reports have raised serious concerns about police storage of 2022, His Majesty's inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) found police forces were "struggling to meet the demands placed on it by the digital age" as a result of the fast growth in digital University of Leicester's study into police retention of investigative materials, found three quarters of lawyers it surveyed had worked on a criminal conviction where evidence had been lost, destroyed or contaminated. Almost half claimed this had happened on multiple Baroness Casey's 2023 review into the culture of the Metropolitan Police found officers having to contend with "over-stuffed, dilapidated or broken fridges and freezers containing evidence including the rape kits of victims".It found an "overworked and inexperienced workforce" lacked the "infrastructure and specialism" for dealing with sexual offences, which existed before a specialist unit was disbanded in BBC study found around one in 20 prosecutions by the Met had been dropped as a result of missing evidence between 2020 and comparison around one in 50 were dropped across England and Met said the number included situations where police could not find an expert witness or were not able to obtain a required medical statement and to suggest it was simply down to lost evidence was acknowledged that on "a rare number of occasions" evidence is misplaced, adding: "We continue to make improvements to our recording systems to minimise this risk."The Home Office refused the BBC's offer to NPCC said: "When evidential issues occur in a case, the CPS will raise this with police for any action deemed necessary and we will work together to ensure these are resolved wherever possible."The results of a consultation by the Law Commission, which proposed re-establishing a national forensic service and making the mishandling of evidence a criminal offence in some circumstances, are set to go before Parliament next week. Additional reporting by Catherine Heuston and Claire Jones.
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- The Guardian
Sycamore Gap tree duo do not belong in prison
As a social worker who wrote hundreds of pre-sentence reports before becoming a criminologist, and someone who has been to prison before all of that, I would urge the judge in the case of the two men convicted of felling the Sycamore Gap tree to act creatively and constructively (Two men found guilty of 'mindless, moronic' felling of Sycamore Gap tree, 9 May). The UK sends more people to prison, and for longer, than all other European countries. People seem to think that anything other than a prison sentence is tantamount to absolving the convicted of guilt and letting them escape punishment. Community penalties restrict liberty, and compel individuals to put something back and learn from their mistakes. Sending the two men to prison will damage their respective futures and achieve little else. Conventional mitigations that the men have shown remorse or insight into their actions both seem absent at this stage, but although locking them up might be popular, it would do little more than give legal form to the destructive vengeful sentiments of an understandably outraged public. A creative sentence would challenge the men to face up to what they have done, while a custodial sentence will merely get rid of them for a while. There are alternatives, and this is a great opportunity for the judge to use them. Doing so would show that the men's actions can be condemned without adding needlessly to the sum of misery and destruction in the Rod Earle Senior lecturer in youth justice, The Open University No doubt this was an idiotic act of wanton vandalism, but let's get a bit of proportion here. Sycamore trees are not native to Britain, but probably brought here in the 1500s. This sycamore was not particularly old. If the tree was so 'iconic', why had the local council failed to place a tree preservation order on it? The monetary value placed on the tree in the trial – £622,191 – was ridiculous. How on earth was that calculated? Based on outrage? How will society benefit from a custodial sentence for these two fools? Would it not be more fitting for a court to decide that they should plant 2,000 trees each? Planting trees is loathsome, back-breaking work. Justice served and hopefully a lesson PowellHolne, Devon The two men found guilty of what is described as the 'mindless' and 'moronic' felling of the Sycamore Gap tree have been told by the judge that they could face 'a lengthy period' in jail. It was indeed a tragedy. Yet no developer or landowner has ever gone to prison for cutting down beloved and listed trees. At best, they get a slap on the wrist or a paltry fine far less than the profit made. If you want to chop down a wonderful tree and get away with it, be moneyed and middle class. This seems to be the law at its most Mary MitchellCambridge If Adam Carruthers and Daniel Graham can be given a custodial sentence for cutting down a 150-year-old sycamore, I think that the managers of the Toby Carvery who commissioned the cutting down of a 500-year-old oak should face a commensurate sentence, so it's a shame that the police decided that it was civil matter and closed their investigation (Felling of ancient London oak tree by Toby Carvery owner reported to police, 15 April).Michael FortHuddersfield, West Yorkshire Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
