People on parole living in backpacker hostels

1.00pm

Criminals have been paroled to stay in backpacker hostels as the alternative was leaving them to live on the street, Corrections Minister Paul Swain said today.

The Corrections Department has paroled criminals to live in backpacker hostels for months, often without telling the hostels about their background.

Mr Swain told National Radio that when criminals came to the end of their sentences it was illegal to keep them in prison.

Putting them in backpacker hostels was a last resort, he said.

"The alternative, I suppose, is to put people under bridges and let them sleep out on the street," he said.

"Of course we will know what will happen if that occurs."

Three are living in hostels where they have been for between two and seven months, Corrections probation manager Katrina Casey told the Dominion Post newspaper.

At least one has been convicted of a violent crime.

Parolees were encouraged to advise the hostel owner they were there on parole, he said.

Arthur Alexander Gray, 42, stabbed a teenage tourist in Nelson only 11 days after release from prison.

In April, Gray was sentenced in the High Court at Wellington to nine years jail for attempted murder.

He had been released with minimal supervision to live in a Nelson backpackers despite a violent history, National Party law and order spokesman Tony Ryall said at the time.

Corrections Department probation and offender services manager Katrina Casey said it was critical offenders were in accommodation and the Community Probation Service knew where they were.

Department records showed there were three parolees, from a total of 1200, living in backpacker' hostels, she said.

An offender's convictions are able to be disclosed to a backpacker's owner only if the department believed the offender presented serious and imminent danger, she said.

"The department is aware that in one case the offender has made this disclosure voluntarily, but the department has had no cause to date to advise the owners about the other two cases," she said.

Offenders were monitored by probation officers in accordance with normal procedure, she said.

The offenders were convicted of a range of offences, including violence, and their sentences ranged from four to seven years, she said.

One offender had reached their final release date, and by law had to be released from prison, and no other accommodation was available.

One parolee's original address became unsuitable, no other accommodation was available so he moved to a backpacker hostel.

One offender was released to accommodation that was not initially, but has since become, a backpacker hostel.

The length of time the offenders had been living in this accommodation ranged from two to seven months, all without incident or cause for concern, she said.

All accommodation costs were borne by the offenders, she said.

- NZPA