This Act has some main goals. You can think of these goals as the reasons why this Act exists. The goals are to decide why someone who has done something wrong should be punished, and to help people understand why the court makes certain decisions when punishing someone.
The Act also aims to give courts some rules to follow when deciding how to punish someone. This helps make sure that the punishment is fair and that everyone is treated equally.
The Act wants to make sure that there are enough different types of punishments to choose from, so the court can pick the one that best fits the situation. It also wants to make sure that the people who were hurt by the crime are considered and their needs are taken care of.
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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM135341.
1: Title, or
"The Sentencing Act 2002: a New Zealand law about sentencing."
The Parliamentary Counsel Office has made editorial and format changes to this version using the powers under subpart 2 of Part 3 of the Legislation Act 2019.
Note 4 at the end of this version provides a list of the amendments included in it.
This Act is administered by the Ministry of Justice.
