KEY POINTS:
Corrections Minister Damien O'Connor says he believes personal contact should be made with offenders who breach their parole conditions while lifers on parole should have to report weekly.
Mr O'Connor said changes were being made to the way prisoners on parole were managed following the release of three
reports on the Graeme Burton case.
Burton was released from prison last July after serving a 14-year murder sentence, but breached parole in December falling back into a life of crime that culminated in him shooting dead Karl Kuchenbecker in the hills above Lower Hutt.
Mr O'Connor said today Corrections Department staff had been instructed to change processes in three key areas including providing information to the Parole Board.
There had to be a formal process so that any relevant information gained from Corrections officers about the behaviour of prisoners in jail would go to the Parole Board, Mr O'Connor told Radio New Zealand.
If, while on parole, there was any indication that -- particularly life parolees -- might have breached their conditions of parole, "then we move swiftly within 24 hours to issue them a notice of breach and I think we should go one step further and in fact ensure that personal contact is made with that parolee".
Life parolees would have to report weekly until they had met all the terms and conditions of their parole as laid down by the Parole Board.
Mr O'Connor said that the public expected appropriate changes to be made so such a situation did not happen again.
As minister he was responsible for ensuring the management of parolees was up to standard, he said.
New Zealand First law and order spokesman Ron Mark said today that criminals wanting to get out of jail ought to be considered guilty until proven innocent.
He said: "When the system is stopping critical information from being considered, you have a situation where the rights of the prisoner are given higher priority than the rights of the community to live in safety. And we are seeing the tragic results of this.
"Parole should be a privilege and not a right. Serious offenders can and must be managed with 'zero tolerance'."
The National Party said heads must roll over the Burton parole "disaster".
National's justice and corrections spokesman Simon Power said a warning letter to Burton for breaching parole was not followed up for six days because the parole officer was on leave and the proper offender management system checks were not made.
But Mr O'Connor said it was difficult to pinpoint any one individual responsible for the tragedy, which became clear in the Parole and Corrections reports.
"But I'm sure that everyone ... who was in any way involved through parole management, feels in some part responsible for this and will do their very best to make the improvements to ensure that this doesn't happen again," Mr O'Connor said.
Burton's parole officer had done everything she was supposed to have done, although the "timelines could have been tightened up".
- NZPA, NZHERALD STAFF
