Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announcing the Government is moving forward with coalition promises for longer sentences. Video / Mark Mitchell
Analysis by Derek Cheng
Derek Cheng is a Multimedia Journalist for New Zealand’s Herald. He values holding those in power to account and shining a light on issues kept in the dark.
The Government has passed its flagship sentencing reforms that will lead to longer sentences and add an estimated 1350 prisoners over 10 years
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said the changes are a response to a rise in violent crime and sentences of ‘undue leniency’ under Labour
One of the major factors leading to more community sentences and fewer prison sentences were law changes in 2016, under the previous National-led Government
ANALYSIS
The governing parties all struck a law and order chord among voters in the election campaign, promising to reverse what they each called Labour’s “soft on crime” approach.
The Coalition Government has just followed through on many of its campaign promises and coalition commitments by tightening judicial discretion and limiting sentencing discounts.
“We know that the undue leniency has resulted in a loss of public confidence in elements of sentencing and in our justice system as a whole. And we’ve developed, sadly, in this country, a culture of excuses for crime.
“That ends this week.”
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says sentences have been too lenient. Photo / Dean Purcell
But that “undue leniency” was enabled by two law changes made not under Labour, but in 2016 under the previous National-led Government. The changes added safeguards to community-based sentences, leading to their increasing use instead of prison sentences.
In the first five years of the changes coming into effect, from mid-2017, there was a 41% drop in the number of people starting short prison sentences, according to the justice sector’s Long-Term Insights On Imprisonment briefing (LTIB).
In real numbers, this translated to almost 3000 fewer offenders being given such a sentence following conviction.
The same drop (41%) occurred for those starting a long sentence, over the same period. By June 2022, the number of sentenced criminals in prison had dropped by 2500, compared to November 2017.
Judicial practices evolved with the changes. Before them, in the 2016-17 year, Justice Ministry figures show 13.5% of all those convicted were sent to prison. A slightly higher proportion - 14.3% - were given high-level community sentences (intensive supervision, community detention, or home detention).
By mid-2022, the proportion of community sentences had jumped to one in five, almost double the proportion receiving a prison sentence (10.7%). Intensive supervision, in particular, had become much more popular than a short prison sentence.
Intensive supervision is a community-based rehabilitation sentence for those who have a medium to high risk of reoffending, and who are convicted of more serious offences.
The 2016 changes by the previous National-led Government meant that electronic monitoring and testing for drugs or alcohol could be used to monitor compliance with intensive supervision conditions, such as an abstinence order.
One of the hopes was that it would help offenders get clean; an estimated 87% have a substance problem during their lifetime, while 47% currently have one.
“The Government recognises that we must do more than just hold offenders to account, and we must address the underlying causes of criminal behaviour and break the cycle of offending,” said then-Corrections Minister Judith Collins in November 2016, at the third reading of the drug and alcohol testing bill.
Swapping prison sentences for community-based sentences was perhaps an unintended consequence.
Collins made no mention of the potential for this in her speech, nor did officials anticipate such a response. The regulatory impact statement for the electronic monitoring bill only noted “uncertainty” about how the courts would respond, adding it might lead to shorter prison sentences.
But the judiciary appears to have made a shift in 2017, when the changes came into effect, if not as a result of them then at least enabled by them.
“Changes to the Sentencing Act in 2017 added safeguards to the sentence of intensive supervision, making it a more attractive sentencing option,” said the LTIB, a comprehensive report involving collaboration from the Justice Ministry, Corrections, Oranga Tamariki, Crown law, the Serious Fraud Office, and NZ Police.
Judges can hand down a sentence of intensive supervision, a community-based rehabilitation sentence, instead of a short prison sentence. Intensive supervision became a more attractive option in 2017, following changes made by the previous National-led Government in 2016. Photo / 123rf
Greater use of intensive supervision started before the changes, but it accelerated afterwards. Three years later, the proportion of offenders receiving intensive supervision following conviction rose from 3.1% to 5.4% - a 74% increase.
“The use of intensive supervision in place of imprisonment reflects a wider movement within the District Court towards more therapeutic approaches, which aim to address the root causes of offending,” the LTIB said.
“Intensive supervision enables people access to treatment within the community, and avoids the disruption to relationships, employment, and housing that can be associated with short prison sentences.”
In a statement, Goldsmith did not acknowledge the changes made under the previous National-led Government, and doubled down on previous comments about rising crime and criminals knowing “they could get away with a slap on the wrist”.
“Our sentencing reforms are a response to Labour’s soft-on-crime approach that prioritised reducing the prison population by 30%,” he said.
“Undue leniency resulted in a loss of public confidence in sentencing, and our justice system as a whole.”
That characterisation was questioned in feedback to the Justice Ministry, which undertook consultation on the Government’s sentencing proposals with the judiciary, the Law Society, the Chief Victims Advisor, the Parole Board and the Public Defence Service.
“In relation to sentencing discounts ... the feedback pushed back against the notion that sentencing outcomes have become more ‘lenient’,” ministry officials said in its regulatory impact statement.
“Instead, judicial sentencing decisions respond to emerging evidence (for example, in response to an increased scientific understanding of adolescent brain development). This practice explains the trends towards shorter sentences of imprisonment, rather than a tendency towards greater lenience.”
Less reoffending, as prison population plummets
The judicial shift, from mid-2017, coincides with a fall in reoffending rates:
62% of prisoners reoffended within 24 months of leaving prison in 2016/17, falling to 54.5% in 2021/22.
Over the same period, the reoffending rate for 24 months after starting a community sentence fell from 40.3% to 33.7%.
At that point, in mid-2022, New Zealand’s imprisonment rate had fallen to 150 people per 100,000 in prison - only slightly above the OECD average.
This was 30% lower than in early 2018, when the prison population - including sentenced and remand prisoners - peaked at 10,800 and the rate (214/100,000) was the sixth highest in the OECD.
Other than the judicial shift, the LTIB cited two other contributing factors to the fall in prisoner numbers.
The first was the growing backlog of serious violence and Class A drug dealing cases (offences more likely to lead to prison sentences). This meant more people waiting for a court outcome, slowing the flow of those being sent to prison.
The second was a landmark 2019 Court of Appeal decision on sentencing for Class A drug dealing, which allowed addiction to be factored into the dealer’s offending. This meant larger sentencing discounts in those circumstances.
The number of prisoners serving time for supplying Class A drugs more than halved - from 765 to 350 - between June 2018 and June 2022.
By then, though, the prison population and reoffending rates started tracking upwards again.
This period corresponds with data showing a rise in violent crime since the start of 2022, though there are signs it has peaked.
Violent crime trends
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said repeatedly that violent crime rose sharply under Labour, basing this on victimisation reports to police for “acts intended to cause injury”, which covers assault and serious assault.
There were 50,110 such reports in 2017, rising to 76,797 in 2023 - a 53% increase. The total annual number grew every year from 2018 to 2023.
It’s unclear why police laid fewer charges in 2021 than in 2020, despite 6000 more victimisation reports to police over that period. This seems to have had flow-on consequences: there were also fewer convictions, fewer people charged, and fewer people convicted of “acts intended to cause injury” in 2021 than in 2020.
Since then, the numbers in each of these categories have grown every year, even in 2024, when the number of victimisation reports to police dipped slightly.
Goldsmith also cited aggravated robbery and ram raids during the third reading of his sentencing reforms bill.
The number of aggravated robbery victimisations fell during Labour’s first term in Government, and grew during its second term.
The number of charges and convictions has been increasing since the start of 2022, but the trend in the number of people charged or convicted is relatively steady. This aligns with some of the observations across different crime data: an increasing trend of more crimes per offender.
The number of victimisation reports to police fell in 2024, both for “acts intended to cause injury” and for aggravated robbery.
This may yet be reflected in court data for 2025, given the time it takes for a police complaint to develop into a charge that then makes its way through the courts.
The number of monthly ram raids rose sharply from mid-2020 and peaked in August 2022.
This was a period during the pandemic - with increased isolation - where growing youth crime was a consistent pattern in many western nations, including New Zealand.
The NZ Crime and Victims Survey (NZCVS) covers what police and court data do not: unreported crime, which accounts for 76% of all crime.
The latest survey shows violent crime - defined as assault, sexual assault and robbery - to be relatively steady since the start of 2018.
But since 2022, there’s been an increase in both the number of annual incidents (from 162,000 to 191,000), and the percentage of the adult population who are victims (from 3.9% to 4.4%) of violent crime.
Because of this, there is now quarterly reporting on this metric. The last update showed that the annual figures peaked in June 2024, with 215,000 incidents affecting 5% of the population. The trend since then, on both measures, has fallen for two consecutive quarters.
Perceptions of safety also improved in the latest NZCVS, with 12.7% of adults feeling unsafe in 2024, down from 15% in 2023.
The Government has cited these trends, along with the drop in victimisation reports to police, to say that the trend in violent crime has peaked.
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Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.
