Tough new work testing regime for home crims

Most prisoners on home detention will be expected to look for a job under a new work-testing regime planned for later this year.

Corrections Minister Paul Swain today said that from later this year, offenders on home detention would not be automatically exempt from work testing.

Exemptions would only be granted for good reasons, such as attending court-ordered rehabilitation programmes.

Mr Swain said unemployment was below 4 per cent, but former prisoners still struggled to find work, which was crucial to their rehabilitation.

About a quarter of all criminals returned to prison within a year of release, he said.

"We have to do more to stop people returning to prison and getting them into work is one of the ways to achieve that goal.

"This is a major step forward in the Government's push to reduce reoffending rates."

Mr Swain said the work-testing move was part of a wider strategy aimed at helping rehabilitate prisoners through work.

Associate Social Development Minister Rick Barker said the first step of that strategy would be assigning a dedicated Work and Income case manager and work broker to every prison to help prisoners find work upon release.

From later this year prisoners would then be given greater opportunities for work experience and training in areas of skill shortage.

Work and Income case managers would work closely with "reintegration workers", whose job would be to ease inmates back into the community.

The Department of Corrections has been piloting reintegration of workers in Wellington and Waikato and would roll out the scheme to other regions over the next year, Mr Barker said.

"Employment must be seen as a part of the integration process back in to society," he said.

"Inmates who leave prison and find work have a much better chance of staying out of trouble."

- REUTERS