It's often too easy for those of us who, like me, got a driver's licence when all it took was a cruise round a block of Hastings and a handbrake start on the railway line, just how important driver's licences have become.
For the majority of Kiwis who don't have passports, the driver's licence is practically the only means of identification acceptable to banks.
In addition a driver's licence is often the key to finding a job.
A researcher for former Corrections Minister Judith Collins sent me the following:
"83 percent of job seekers are unable to apply for a job vacancy where a driver's licence is a core competency. Conversely, a young person with a full or restricted licence is three times more likely to secure employment".
And:
"Employers want to employ people who have at least their Restricted Licence. This enables the driver to drive company vehicles alone in work hours and/or take passengers, providing one of those passengers has had a Full Licence for two years. Employment opportunities for Learner Licence-only drivers are limited".
Lack of a driving licence is often a short-cut to jail.
The same researcher quoted above reports:
"With regard to the Department of Corrections, nine per cent of the prison population (about 900 prisoners) and 25 percent of community-based offenders (about 28,000) have convictions for licence/regulatory offences. Of these figures, approximately 40 per cent are Māori males aged 20-29 years".
Police statistics tell us that 65 per cent of Maori (who make up more than half of our prison muster) commit a driving offence as at least part of the conviction which led to a first jail sentence.
When these mostly young Maori go to jail, they too often fall into the malign clutches of gangs and a life of crime follows.
With the cost of keeping one prisoner in jail for a year now exceeding $100,000, any initiative which successfully breaks this cycle before it starts would be of considerable value to you and me as taxpayers, not to mention changing lives.
In 2014 Corrections awarded The Howard League a small sum of seed-funding to test the concept in the Hastings, Napier and Flaxmere Probation Offices, and The League raised some more money locally.
This enabled us to employ a tutor and to develop the necessary strategies and materials.
In the first half year of operation the programme got licences for 43 offenders and rapidly became very popular with the probation officers.
In 2015 another 117 offenders got their licences. We funded that year's activities from Howard League resources but the programme, having attracted the attention of the Land Transport Agency, was granted funding from that source for the 2016 year.
By 2016 the programme was really flying with 195 licences achieved in that year, and the Corrections Department offered funding for a duplicate of the initiative in West Auckland to receive offenders from the Henderson, Wairau and New Lynn Probation offices.
In addition, this programme accepts participants from the West Auckland Alcohol and Drug Court and two drug rehabilitation centres.
In its first year this West Auckland programme is heading towards 120 licences and has also been promised another year of funding by the Corrections Department.
A senior businessman, convinced of the value of such initiatives has organised a major financial contribution for a third programme to be based in Whangarei and that will begin this week.
We have found that getting a licence can be a life-changing experience and a chance to make a fresh start for many of these offenders.
In many cases the Courts have rewarded success in our programme by waiving accumulated fines.
Many of our clients are out of work so we have begun attempts to link our successes to employment opportunities and to this end we have been pointing our now ex-offenders in the direction of Project Hua.
This is a truly great initiative and is focused on placing 540 additional local people into horticulture over the next three years. This includes placing 300 beneficiaries (made up of seasonal, temporary and permanent roles) and 200 rangatahi (young people) into sustainable jobs.
Folks with driver's licences and jobs are much less likely to fetch up in jail.
Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
