Prison reforms: Government ditches reduction targets and cultural reports
The government confirmed today it is scrapping the prison reduction target and will no longer fund the cultural reports used in sentencing.
It says it is “making good on its promise to restore law and order” in New Zealand, but the Green Party says the decision will cause “significant harm” to Māori in particular.
The moves were earlier announced as part of National’s 100-day plan, but were confirmed by the government after a Cabinet meeting today.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said the Section 27 cultural reports cost taxpayers more than $7 million in the last financial year and led to shorter sentences.
Goldsmith said the reports had become a “cottage industry costing taxpayers millions and doing nothing for the victims of crime”.
The government will introduce a bill in the next Parliamentary session – which starts next week – to exclude the reports from legal aid.
Speaking to media after today’s Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said there was still the opportunity for anyone to bring someone who can speak to their past into the courtroom, but there would not be funding for written reports.
Further legislation will also cap jail sentence discounts at 40 percent, with the previous government’s target to reduce the prison population by 30 percent also being scrapped.
Look, if someone hurt my family our friends, I’d want 5 minutes alone with the person and a baseball bat, I get that terrible harm inflicted on innocent people drives a thirst for righteous revenge, and I acknowledge that, but we are talking about actual social policy here and because of the overwhelming power of the State over the individual in a prison environment, we must demand checks and balances and quantifiable outcomes over a thirst for vengeance.
Remember – the prisoner losing their liberty IS the punishment, making prisoners suffer additionally to that punishment is a recipe for social disaster and that’s why we see a 70% re-offense rate within 2 years of prison release!
We don’t want people in prison because the greatest determinate of whether or not a person will go to prison – IS BEING SENT TO PRISON!
We want our Judges to pass justice, not revenge, and giving them more background understanding of the person they are judging plus the flexibility to focus on attempting to find a way for the prisoner to be punished by losing their liberty AND attempting to rehabilitate them so that violent criminality isn’t an ongoing feature of their character.
Judges having the much maligned ‘Cultural Reports’ is exactly the kind of background understanding we want from Judges so that mercy is what the Court is focused on. You can’t get Justice without using mercy, look our underfunded, over crowded, violent and corrupt prison system only manufactures men more damaged than when they went in!
We don’t allow any rehabilitation to any prisoner unless they admit their guilt – seeing as many of those prisoners are on remand and haven’t had their trial yet, why would they admit guilt?
National placed that rule so as to smear dog shit in the prisoners faces before they could gain access to rehabilitation, it was a needless cruelty and ‘respect my authritah’ big dick virtue signalling by National that has created a massive counter productive backlash that sees prisoners serve their entire sentence never admitting their guilt and getting no rehab!
In terms of our overcrowded, violent, underfunded prison system, this is extremely grim reading…
‘Disconnection at all levels’: Ombudsman’s scathing review of Corrections
Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has issued a blistering critique of the Department of Corrections’ top brass, who he says are failing to drive meaningful progress.
Boshier started an investigation into management at Corrections, after the 2020 Waikeria Prison riot. He said it became clear that previous recommendations for change at Corrections had not been actioned, and so investigated management and culture within the department.
“Waikeria was one of many prisons I had inspected over a number of years where despite countless recommendations for change by both me and other oversight agencies, the same issues kept coming up, again and again,” he said.
He said Corrections’ senior leaders knew what needed to be done, but had not ensured any improvements were made to the conditions of prisons.
…we have all the ingredients for a prison riot.
Do you understand what he’s saying here?
He said there needed to be a greater focus on ensuring basic human rights for prisoners, with poor conditions in the prisons making it more dangerous for staff and prisoners as tensions rose.
The living conditions become so squalid that the prisoners will revolt and you will spark prison riots!
That’s what happened at the Waikeria prison riot! The living conditions, even for a prison, became so run down and inoperable that it collapsed.
National, ACT ands NZ First want to plough thousands more people into our broken and dysfunctional Prison Empire with zero costings and no way to fund the enormous spike in the Prison population they are about to embark us upon.
Watch for the calls to privatise the prison system.
An underfunded, violent and corrupt prison system will only produce more damaged men.
All the ingredients for a Prison Riot are now in place.
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The Pennsylvania System had largely solved the problem of prison riots.
The groundbreaking design, promoted by the Quakers and other prison reform campaigners, had personal facilities for every prisoner, including his own exercise yard. This made it the first ‘silent system’ in which prisoners could not communicate with each other, thus destroying the prison gangs completely.
The prisoners would work alone in their cell making items such as shoes and textiles. The main reason it didn’t remain the preferred prison model in Europe and the U.S. is that telephones, radio and television did not yet exist at the time — and thus there wasn’t a method to deliver the daily education and therapy required to prevent isolation-related psychosis.
Goldsmith interviews this morning was another train wreck from our new train wreck of a government, with no clues. Goldsmith interview on RNZ was of poor quality he was mumbling shite out of his mouth we all know legal aide in NZ is already pathetic extremely targeted. No cultural reports are just another kick in the guts for Māori and shows our legal system is unfair and inaccessible for many Nzers. Why are we paying taxes when we are getting fuck all back.
Yet again we see the further embedding of a two tier level of justice, being justified soley by cost savings. The government needs to do more than justify this change on savings, it needs to show us that nothing is being achieved by this reporting. What analysis of the programme has been conducted, and where are the results of the analysis to justify scrapping the programme.
If Cultural Reports are still admissable in court, why are those not wealthy enough to obtain one being disadvantaged?
“I posit the Scandinavian low crime rate has a lot to do with the general civilised behaviour and culture of those countries.”
How about we work towards achieving that?
I’m surprised you didn’t mention North Korea in countries with low crime rates.
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