The Policy: National Real Consequences for Crime — 2023 Election →

TL;DR

• National has brought back the "Three Strikes" sentencing law. It gives tougher, automatic punishments to people who keep committing the most serious violent and sexual crimes.
• It works in three stages. A first serious conviction brings a formal warning. A second means the sentence is served with no chance of early release (no parole). A third brings the maximum, or near-maximum, sentence for that crime.
• The law covers 42 serious offences, including strangulation and suffocation, which were newly added. A crime only counts as a "strike" if the sentence is long enough (more than 12 months for a first strike, more than 24 months for a second), so minor cases are screened out.
• Judges keep one safety valve: if a full three-strikes sentence would be "manifestly unjust" in a particular case, they can step back from it.
• The law passed in December 2024 and came into force on 17 June 2025, so National has delivered what it promised.
• Whether it actually works is disputed. The Law Society says the evidence shows it does little to deter crime. Several legal and human-rights groups warned it would fall hardest on Māori and Pasifika. From the other side, much public feedback said it didn't go far enough.

More detail

Supporters say the law gives victims certainty that the worst repeat offenders will face serious consequences, and that removing early release for a second strike keeps dangerous people locked up for longer.

Critics, including the New Zealand Law Society, the Human Rights Commission and the Children's Commissioner, argue that automatic sentences stop judges weighing the specific circumstances of each case, that the evidence doesn't clearly show they reduce crime, and that they risk deepening existing gaps in the justice system for Māori and Pasifika. Because a version of this law existed before (from 2010 to 2022), warnings people received back then can be counted again under the new rules.