KEY POINTS:
The Parole Board is under fire as Auckland police hunt a violent criminal who escaped soon after being released from prison into home detention.
Richie Stuart Clutterbuck, 44, has a long history of offending and is considered by police to be a danger to the public, yet the board saw fit to release him into home detention at a residential programme in Dunedin, even after stating he was of "high risk of reoffending".
Clutterbuck was serving a prison term of three years and nine months for theft and fraud, but also has a history of violence.
One Auckland officer said: "He will have a go at an ordinary person, man or woman, it doesn't worry him too much."
In one incident in 2002, he created chaos on an Air New Zealand flight when he attacked a police officer escorting him from Auckland to Christchurch.
Police believe Clutterbuck may have made his way north from Dunedin to the Auckland area since escaping last week.
His escape has again highlighted shortcomings in the home detention scheme.
It comes as the Corrections Department is already defending itself over the death in custody of teenager Liam Ashley.
The department points out that 98 per cent of people on home detention do not abscond, but New Zealand First MP Ron Mark believes most escapes from home detention are not even reported.
Mr Mark said violent criminals should never be allowed home detention.
In the case of Clutterbuck "the whole of New Zealand will wait and hope, before police catch him, that he doesn't create another victim". "This only confirms our view that the board should be disbanded. They have hung themselves with their own petard."
In a speech on Monday, Justice Minister Mark Burton praised the home detention scheme, which will soon be a sentence in its own right.
"The effectiveness of home detention is well established. It has low reconviction and reimprisonment rates when compared to prison sentences, and high compliance rates."
In its written decision on the release of Clutterbuck to home detention, the board said: "The board considers Mr Clutterbuck to be of high risk of reoffending but, given his age and his motivation to undertake the [residential] programme, it considers that this programme will lower his risk and assist him in refraining from reoffending."
Clutterbuck left the house he was confined to about 4am on Thursday last week.
"An alarm went off as soon as he left the approved residence without permission," said community probation general manager Katrina Casey.
"The electronic monitoring restricts an offender to a particular location and provides notification if an offender sets foot outside the approved boundary without a probation officer's permission. It is not a tracking device. . . "
Security company Chubb, which has also been under fire over Liam Ashley's death, was responsible for the electronic monitoring of Clutterbuck.
The figures
Numbers absconding from home detention:
* 2004-5 - 45 (1.3 per cent of total home detainees).
* 2005-6 - 24 (0.8 per cent).
* 2006-7 (first three-quarters) - 38 (1.4 per cent).
