Jarrod Gilbert: Devil in the detail in politicians’ ‘tough on crime’ call

OPINION

Crime has returned to the fore in New Zealand’s political debates. With an election looming, this is of little surprise to anyone. It’s as predictable as the seasons: every election cycle, crime of some sort is suddenly out of control.

The Opposition proposes a raft of tough new policies, crowing that the Government has gone soft, and the Government is forced to respond in kind. It doesn’t matter which major party is in government at the time; the pattern is always the same. But this time around, there’s a problem that nobody is talking about.

Tough-on-crime policies lead invariably to higher rates of imprisonment. That’s always the case, but right now, we’ve got nowhere to put the people we imprison. Not because the prisons are full (they aren’t), but because there’s nobody to run them.

At New Zealand’s peak, the prison population was at capacity, approaching 11,000 in 2018. We were double-bunking and literally at capacity. For a short period, we had nowhere to hold people. Prison vans were shuffling around to find the last of the space. It was a little-known crisis.

The 2017 election campaign was dominated by talk about building a new $1 billion facility at Waikeria. There was a significant debate about this because nobody wanted to spend that much money on a prison. Education and health are always more desirable, and even money for preventive policing is a better-sounding spend.

At New Zealand’s peak, the prison population was at capacity, approaching 11,000 in 2018. Photo / John Borren

I had sympathy for the side of the debate not wanting to spend the money, but at the time concluded it was necessary or the prisons were going to be in crisis, a point we eventually reached.

What averted the crisis being utterly catastrophic was a decrease in the prison muster. From its peak in 2018, the number of prisoners fell away to about 8500 today.

There has been a bit made of this drop, with some claiming that it is represented in short-term increases in crime.

But the decreases in prisoner numbers are clustered in less serious offenders, the ram raids have been undertaken primarily by young people, so not those in our adult prisons, and gang associations have actually increased in prisons relative to the drop, so the issue is more complex than one might imagine.

But the one thing we know for certain is despite a significant drop in prisoner numbers, New Zealand prisons are under enormous strain in relation to staff.

Like many of our strains (including the recent crime increases, I suspect), this started with Covid. It took out staff like it took out the rest of us. In a prison, though, there is no option for working from home. The decrease in prisoner numbers was proportionally less than the decrease in staff.

Also, like many other industries, Corrections began to suffer staff shortages due to the tight labour market. Prison staff who resign or retire can simply not be replaced.

Tough-on-crime policies lead invariably to higher rates of imprisonment. That’s always the case, but right now, we’ve got nowhere to put the people we imprison.

Efforts have been made to shore up recruitment - you’ve almost certainly seen the ad campaigns - but they’re yet to solve the problem.

The problem is now such that some of the most senior managers have occasionally been called in to work on the prison floor.

The text message system used to ask staff to take additional shifts is something to behold. Meant to be a back-up for short-term problems, it is currently a constantly-used system - and I mean constantly. In some areas, staff get call-back requests every day.

These are clearly big issues for prison administration, but they impact on prisoners, who are often under long lock-ups and have gone huge periods without visits. Many readers will have zero sympathy for the plight of prisoners - some may take joy in their discomfort - but in environments like these, problems brew.

Resentment builds - and eventually, goes snap.

But even more than that, it’s these environments that we are saying will solve the problems of crime through rehabilitation. That’s not just unlikely, it’s damn near impossible.

So while it’s all well and good for politicians to be leaning into the idea of sending more people to prison, we ought to be asking them how they’re going to solve the problems that currently exist.

Any significant increase in prison numbers in the near future won’t solve as many problems as it creates. While election campaigns are often light on details, it’s in the details where the devil resides.

Dr Jarrod Gilbert is the director of Independent Research Solutions and a sociologist at the University of Canterbury.