Editorial: A welcome take on the jail debate

Great things can happen when a fresh mind is brought to an old problem. Damien O'Connor, the West Coast MP appointed Minister of Corrections in the last Cabinet reshuffle, has begun to tackle the problem of New Zealand's imprisonment rate in a most promising way. Late last month he went to a conference in Finland and took along two men who were likely to be on opposite sides of penal policy debate. One was Kim Workman, a former assistant secretary of corrections, now director of the Prison Fellowship. The other was Garth McVicar, chairman of the Sensible Sentencing Trust.

There appears to have been a meeting of minds on the other side of the world. All three heard New Zealand cited as an example of what not to do. New Zealand's high rate of imprisonment has not, as we well know, reduced the crime rate in this country. It is not only failing to rehabilitate, it is failing to be a deterrent. All three agree it is time this country adopted alternatives for certain sorts of offending - and not soft alternatives. Mr McVicar's refrain has always been that the punishment should fit the crime and he recognises that alternatives to prison can meet that demand better than prison has done.

Not everybody is in step with this thinking. The National Party's corrections spokesman, Simon Power, says the Government is merely trying to cut costs. If that is so, more power to it. Imprisonment is a massive cost to the taxpayer for very little social gain. As fast as the Government has been building new prisons in the countryside of Northland, Waikato and other regions, the courts have been filling them. A high proportion of those in jail at any given time are serving short sentences for repeated minor offences. Others are serving longer terms for non-violent crimes. If ways can be found to punish criminals in both categories without providing them with free food and lodging, taxpayers should applaud it.

But the proviso is important; punishments must be found that are as severe in their own way as imprisonment. Since prison is the ultimate loss of liberty, alternatives can make almost unlimited demands on the offender's time. For crimes such as fraud and repeated drunk driving, which now incur a prison sentence, alternatives could require the convicted to give up their preferred employment for the same period and work as directed for the benefit of their victims or the community.

One difficulty is, of course, that if an alternative does not permit the criminal to provide for himself and his dependants, the state will have to provide for them. But the state usually has to support the families of prisoners and the cost of sustaining the offender on a standard benefit as well would still be less than imprisonment.

When the work is well-chosen the criminal might find it socially instructive and rehabilitative, but that need not be the requirement in all cases. If the work is boring or unpleasant and no more rehabilitative than prison it would still be preferable to the high costs of custody.

Another difficulty is that it is always easier to invoke the idea of community service than to find suitable work. As with schemes to occupy the unemployed, it is not easy to find work that does not take jobs from those who derive their livelihood from them. The work must be such that it is unlikely to be economic for anyone to do. We should, therefore, not expect the Corrections Department to show a profit on punitive work programmes. Savings in the prison budget would justify subsidies for the alternatives.

Most important, the alternatives must not be "soft options". Mr McVicar's presence, we trust, can see to that.