In light of the publicity the Sensible Sentencing Trust received after its annual conference last week, Prisoner Aid and Rehabilitation Service (Pars) national director Lyanne Kerr said the trust was a select victims' club whose policies went against the bulk of research on improving criminal justice systems.
But trust head Garth McVicar said he was used to such criticism, and welcomed the debate.
"It's the typical sort of knee-jerk reaction we expected from what we are proposing. There are opponents everywhere where people wanted to introduce these sorts of policies."
Mrs Kerr said she did not believe the trust was really interested in public safety, "because if they were, you would be doing things a lot differently to what they are doing".
Giving people longer, harsher sentences and making parole and bail harder to get and keep, resulted in more people in prisons.
"That is why the prisons are bulging now, because people are being caught much more. If these people could meet deadlines and deal themselves with their mental health and drug and alcohol issues, they would be functioning people like you and me."
The trust wanted the system's emphasis to be on victims, but often offenders were victims too, Mrs Kerr said.
"When they are 2 or 3, like James Whakaruru or Lily Bing, we feel terrible if they are beaten to death, but when the kids that survive those beatings or the other hideous things that might happen to them [later commit crime], we have no tolerance for them."
Saying things like "You do the crime, you do the time" was all well and good, but people did not realise most people eventually came out of prison.
"And they might live next door to you or me.
So if you put them in cells and you treat them like animals, they're not going to be nice when they come out."
The trust had gained so much popularity because it consisted of white, middle-class people who said what people wanted to hear.
"These are not people who would go down to a gang pad or know anything about what's happening there. To them, it seems nice to kick into a bunch of people who no-one's going to stick up for.
"It's a bit of sport, a bit of a moral workout; it makes you feel good. We don't trust our politicians any more so we take this vigilante approach."
In 10 years, when the prison population was huge, people would be ashamed they had taken up "this stupid tactic" instead of giving people some skills and keeping them out of jail, she said.
"If things were as simple as what Garth McVicar says, I would want to do it, too. But it's not. It makes things worse and then there's more dysfunctional people, more boys growing up without a dad because he's banged up."
Mr McVicar said Mrs Kerr's comments were another example of an "excuse-driven mentality".
The argument that offenders were victims too was what got New Zealand into "this pickle" in the first place, he said.
For a long time, people had tried to sort out the criminal justice system using the philosophy that everybody could be rehabilitated, he said.
"But that's obviously not true. For the safety of the community, they need to be locked away. I don't really care if they had a bad background or whatever. I feel sorry for them, but we can't rehabilitate some of them. People have got to accept that."
He rubbished Mrs Kerr's claim that some people did not have choices to turn themselves around.
He knew people who had had a bad background and upbringing, but had managed to turn their lives around.
"It is possible; of course it is."
He denied the trust was an exclusive organisation.
Its membership involved a wide range of people, including members of some offenders' families.
The trust did not approach victims and never would, but anyone at all could approach it, he said.
With regards to the research, studies showing that the policies the trust promoted worked had been done and had even been presented to various political parties, which had not rejected them.
He had no problem with groups such as Pars raising the issues as long as they were doing something to change the situation, Mr McVicar said.
"What I do have a problem with is that they are so verbal and hateful in their criticism of us. I have a huge problem with that because all we are is a bunch of New Zealanders who are saying it's time we had a re-think about where we are going as a nation."
He accepted the policies the trust propounded would not change things instantly, either.
"There's no magic pill to cure this thing . . . We'll be part of the solution. The bigger part of the solution is for the country to have a debate around positive parenting, the role of mums and dads in this whole thing.
"I think that's a debate we are going to have to have. And we're quite happy to take the hiding that we get from people that oppose us because it has instigated a discussion that we always needed to have."
