TOP Criminal Justice Policy: Getting Tough on Prisons
The Opportunities Party has unveiled a criminal justice policy focused on reducing prison populations and addressing the root causes of offending, with leader Gareth Morgan arguing that current approaches are both costly and ineffective.
TOP launches criminal justice reform policy
New Zealand’s burgeoning prison industry is a political crime that has been aided and abetted by successive governments, according to The Opportunities Party.
The economic cost of New Zealand’s prison system
What is more, leader Gareth Morgan said today in launching the party’s criminal justice policy, the economic cost of incarcerating thousands of offenders is only going to grow as long as political parties try to outbid each other on who can offer the most $273 per night prison beds.
Reducing prison populations through early intervention
TOP has an innovative nine-point plan to reduce our prison muster and catch young offenders before they become part of the criminal population. We’re not planning to combat crime by putting more police on the street but by putting fewer criminals into society.
“There’s no good reason why New Zealand should continue to enjoy the dubious distinction of caging more people per head of population than any other western industrialised nation this side of the States,” Dr Morgan says.
“Even the current government accepts our prison growth is an abject moral failure,” Dr Morgan says, “yet to appease redneck voters National is now planning to open a boot camp detention facility in Waiouru to further harden our most challenging young offenders”.
TOP aims to reduce the prison muster by around 40%, down from the current level of 210 inmates per 100,000 Kiwis, to the OECD average, by 2027. That alone would save $4.5 billion.
Youth justice reform and restorative approaches
This vision turns on new strategies to deal with at-risk young people, and extending the more progressive and less punitive jurisdiction of the Youth Court to all offenders under 20 years old. The role of restorative justice will be expanded, drug addiction and substance abuse will be properly dealt with, and political gimmicks like the three strikes law will be dumped.
Why current criminal justice policies are failing
“The situation we are in now isn’t a result of having the world’s worst offenders,” Dr Morgan says, “It has come about because New Zealand has some of the world’s worst and most outdated criminal justice policies.
If the goal of justice is not just punishment but prevention, then reforming the system may be the most effective way to reduce harm in the long term.
