Tough-on-crime policies and expanding prison capacity will not cut reoffending, say rehabilitation advocates in the second part of Sarah Daniell’s feature on restorative justice.
How we roll, traditionally, on crime and punishment in Aotearoa is to a “get tough” narrative rooted in the punitive British tradition. “The Impacts of Incarceration on Crime,” a 2017 paper by San Francisco-based research charity Open Philanthropy, reviewed 35 international studies that examined “getting tough” as a deterrent and found tougher sentences “hardly deter crime, and that while imprisoning people temporarily stops them from committing crime outside prison walls, it also tends to increase their criminality after release. As a result, ‘tough on crime’ initiatives can reduce crime in the short run but cause offsetting harm in the long run.”
Despite the evidence showing locking people up does not reduce crime, the coalition government campaigned on this narrative and has lived up to its promise – most visibly with the reintroduction of the “three strikes” law and boot camps, banning gang patches, capping sentencing discounts, tougher sentences for retail offences, and withdrawing funding for “cultural reports” into offenders’ backgrounds, which helped to inform judges in sentencing.
The government is also boosting prison capacity: a further expansion of the upgraded Waikeria Prison will nearly double capacity to more than 1800 beds. Expansion of Auckland’s Paremoremo Prison is on the fast-track project planning list, although the government says it has no immediate plans to proceed.
Such “stick” rather than “carrot” measures may pander to public opinion, but the government is not giving up on rehabilitation. An $18 million package aimed at victims of crime includes contracting specialist restorative justice services for victims of sexual violence by young offenders. And last May, it announced $78m to extend rehabilitation programmes for prisoners on remand. However, scaling up programmes for the 41% of prisoners who are currently on remand would appear a Herculean task in a system struggling to deliver programmes to sentenced prisoners.
In December, just over 10,000 people were incarcerated in New Zealand. Māori and Pasifika are over-represented at 52.8% and 11.5% respectively. Wāhine Māori inmates make up 63% of the female prison population. Department of Corrections statistics show 55% of Māori male offenders are reimprisoned – considerably higher than the rate for New Zealand Europeans (45%) and Pacific offenders (36%).
It costs the taxpayer more than $150,000 a year to keep someone inside. Asked if this was a good return on investment, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell said in a statement: “Any increase in public safety and preventing more victims is a good return on investment.”
Labour’s Corrections spokesperson, Tracey McLellan, says a good return on investment for everyone, including victims, is preventing re-offending. “Restorative justice and rehabilitation programmes are important opportunities to reduce crime, but they are underutilised and underfunded.”
The Wellington branch of the New Zealand Howard League for Penal Reform recently submitted to a parliamentary select committee review of sentencing laws, noting our imprisonment rate of 181 per 100,000 people exceeds that of Australia (157 per 100,000) and England & Wales (140 per 100,000) and is double that of Canada.
Its submission states: “The only purpose of sentencing that prison appears to meet is punishment, and public protection through incapacitation, for as long as the person is incarcerated.
“Prison is not meeting the remaining objectives, which focus more on preparation for safe release and cutting reoffending.”
The league calls for a philosophical rethink of the purposes of sentencing. “Parliament has not determined a hierarchy of priorities for these purposes … resulting in punishment being promoted almost by default. In particular, there is little understanding of the tension and conflict that sits between punishment and rehabilitation – that the former actively works to make the latter more difficult.”
Lawyer Eesvan Krishnan, co-director of the Wellington branch of the league, questions how the conversation has advanced to building bigger prisons when “we can’t even deal properly with the people currently in prison”.
The league’s philosophy “is that the use of prisons should be minimised wherever possible and that alternative measures, community sentences or restorative justice, should be used. It’s not clear to us that the recent changes have any evidence base. There is clear evidence here and overseas about the lack of any cogent link between tough-on-crime policies and crime victimisation rates.”
It believes Corrections needs to take prisoners rights more seriously – a key finding of a 2023 report by Ombudsman Peter Boshier. “A common theme in my findings is that the legal rights and interests of prisoners have been too easily and unreasonably overlooked,” wrote Boshier.
“The department has not sufficiently had the fair, safe and humane treatment of prisoners at the centre of its decision-making. This appears to me a core reason why change has not occurred.”
Mitchell’s response: “I expect Corrections to manage all prisoners safely and humanely. All prison facilities are operated in accordance with New Zealand legislation and based on other agreements, such as the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.”
