Home detention defaulters 'stoke fears'

Simon Power

People skipping out on home detention could bruise public confidence in the system, says the National Party's law and order spokesman, Simon Power.

"It could confirm the public's worst fears about the system - that in the end they feel it's not monitored to a standard that they feel it should be," he said.

His comments follow a report in the Sunday Star-Times newspaper yesterday which said that of 15 people who absconded while on home detention from last July to March, five were still on the loose - one of whom had been imprisoned for assault with a blunt instrument and injuring with intent.

Five of those caught were recalled to prison to finish their original sentence and not charged with breaching their conditions of home detention - a penalty of one year's imprisonment.

Mr Power said home detention had some merit but only if monitored and carefully reviewed.

"The public will only continue to have confidence in it if it's monitored in a way that gives it ... credibility."

Mr Power said escapers had committed a "virtual prison break".

"It's unacceptable that people who are on home detention are not having the limitations on their liberty monitored in the way that people inside our penal institutions are.

"What it will be doing is adding fuel to the view that it's a soft option."

In the previous financial year 45 inmates, including 12 violent offenders, had breached home detention.

Eleven were later convicted of reoffending while on the run, including two aggravated robberies, fighting and assaulting police.

Corrections Department spokeswoman Tracy Mellor told the newspaper the drop could be due to fewer people being allowed home detention.

More than 2000 offenders were given home detention in the past financial year and 1333 in the first nine months of this financial year.

Meanwhile, Corrections Minister Damien O'Connor says the number of prison break-outs dropped to 11 in the financial year just finished compared to 27 in 1996-97.

"There is absolutely no room for complacency, and 11 is still too high, but it is pleasing that the Labour-led Government's large investment in Corrections is producing results."

- NZPA