TikTok videos filmed inside prisons are causing headaches for Corrections, such as this one purportedly captured in Auckland Prison at Paremoremo, the country's only maximum security facility. Video / Supplied
The prison population, about 10,500, is almost as high as it’s ever been and forecast to keep growing
Prisoners on short sentences are more likely to reoffend than those on longer sentences. Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell is looking into replacing short sentences with longer ones.
He thinks this might be worth the possible public safety gains, even if it would require spending billions of dollars to build more prisons to accommodate an explosion in prisoner numbers
Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell has asked his department to look into whether short prison sentences can be scrapped and replaced with longer ones, which have much lower reoffending rates.
His personal view is that it would be worth it if it meant fewer victims overall, evenif it required building new prisons to house what would be a huge spike in the prison population.
“We’re doing some work around shorter sentences. I’ve spoken to Jeremy [Lightfoot, Corrections chief executive] about it, and he agrees with me,” Mitchell told the Herald.
“But it’s very easy to say, ‘we won’t do short sentences’. It’s far more complicated than that, and much tougher to implement.”
Half of those serving a prison sentence of up to six months are back in prison within 24 months of being released, according to the latest Corrections data. This halves to one in four for those serving sentences of two to three years, and to one in eight for those serving sentences of more than five years.
One reason is that those on short prison sentences (up to two years) have less access to rehabilitation or reintegration programmes, less time to do them, and fewer incentives because they’re automatically released after serving half their time.
Mitchell was responding to comments by the outgoing head of the Parole Board, former High Court judge Sir Ron Young, who told TVNZ’s Q+A that public safety would improve if offenders went to halfway houses instead of prison for short periods.
This would provide rehabilitation and reintegration for those who would otherwise have limited access while on a short prison sentence, making them less likely to reoffend, Young said.
“The idea is that offenders live there, they’ve got oversight, they have limited access to the community,” Young told the Herald.
Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell has rejected a call for more criminals to be sent to halfway houses. Photo / Marty Melville
“There are already rehabilitation and reintegration programmes around New Zealand in places like The Salisbury Street Foundation in Christchurch, and Moana House in Dunedin, who have programmes of 18 months to two years where offenders are very tightly controlled.”
Mitchell agreed there were issues with short prison sentences, but he rejected halfway houses.
“We’re not doing that,” he said.
“I’ve got no appetite at all to have violent offenders who should be getting a custodial sentence back in the community. It presents a dilemma. Either they don’t go to prison – and they’re probably too dangerous to be out in public – or you go for a longer sentence.”
He stressed the idea was merely being looked into, but his personal preference was for a longer sentence.
“That’s where you get the greatest gains in terms of rehabilitating people and successfully reintegrating them into society, rather than pushing them straight back out to the community, where there’s too much risk around reoffending and more victims.”
The idea is similar to Young’s, in that the offender would be less likely to reoffend than if they’d served a short prison sentence.
Instead of more rehabilitation and reintegration in a halfway house, however, they’d have more access to those programmes with a longer sentence, while posing less danger to the community in the meantime.
Effectively abolishing short sentences by adding two years onto every new custodial sentence, though, would see the prison population explode.
Mitchell said the human costs would be worth it – if it led to fewer victims overall – and it could even be worth the price of having to build more prisons.
“Even the economic costs in the long run would probably be better,” he said. The Government is exercising fiscal restraint, so the build money would preferably come from public-private partnerships.
“It’s not a perfect science because you’re dealing with human beings and they’re complex. So it’s very hard. If we wanted to make a change, we would have to change legislation.”
‘Very difficult fish hooks’
Young agreed getting rid of short prison sentences for longer ones involved “a whole lot of very difficult fish hooks”.
“Firstly, the sentence has got to reflect the crime. That’s obviously fundamental. Secondly, if you move up the low-end sentences, then all of the other sentences would have to go up because the difference between less serious and more serious offending would need to be maintained.”
Sentences of up to two years would presumably need to become at least two years, as that’s where differences in recidivism rates “really start to bite”.
“The increase to the prison population would be huge.”
By how much is unclear, though it would almost certainly have a much greater impact than the NZ First-National commitment to require concurrent sentences for offences committed on bail, parole, or in custody. Officials estimate this would double the prison population after 10 years, which has led to such sentences being encouraged, rather than required.
Sir Ron Young, a former chief District Court judge and former High Court judge, has just completed his term as Parole Board chairman.
A key difference in their positions is the notion of accountability. Mitchell’s position suggests that exchanging a short prison sentence for a halfway house fails the accountability test (as well as the public safety test, if the offender commits another crime).
This aligns with the Government’s view that accountability is currently lacking with a judiciary that’s been too lenient; its recent sentencing reforms shift the length of prison sentences towards the more punitive, though Justice Ministry officials slammed most of the elements of the reforms.
“I’ve nothing against accountability,” Young said.
“It’s a question of how you improve the safety of the community. You can’t undo the crime that’s been committed, but what you can do is use science and evidence to try your best to stop them offending again.
“In the end, there is a sort of balance between what a humane society should or shouldn’t be doing. My concern is that so much of criminal justice ideas are driven not by evidence, but by someone who has what they think is a good idea.”
The prison population is inching back up to nearly the highest it's ever been, about 10,500. Photo / File
Those serving a second strike sentence aren’t eligible for parole, so, like offenders serving short prison sentences, there’s no incentive for rehabilitation or reintegration.
“The net result is, of course, that those people will have a very high reoffending rate,” Young said.
No sound evidence
The international literature offers no sound evidence that longer sentences reduce the likelihood of reoffending, said Auckland University of Technology criminology lecturer Grace Gordon.
As for New Zealand-specific research, she pointed to a 2007 Corrections analysis, which said recidivism rates “might suggest longer sentences are effective in lowering re-offending rates”.
But there are “associated variables that might also explain the differences”, including those serving longer sentences being more likely to have done programmes related to their “educational, employment, criminogenic and reintegrative needs”.
Sexual offending tends to lead to longer sentences but has much lower reoffending rates. Source: Corrections
Another variable is that certain types of offending tend to lead to lower reoffending rates, as well as longer sentences; sexual offending, for example, had half the reimprisonment rate of “all offences”.
Gordon said if the evidence for longer sentences reducing reoffending was inconclusive, the next factor to consider is that longer sentences “means more children with a parent in prison for longer”.
“This may lead to higher intergenerational incarceration in the long term, therefore undermining long-term public safety.”
Victoria University criminology senior lecturer Dr Trevor Bradley said a longer sentence wouldn’t make much of a dent in the likelihood of reoffending, if offenders cannot or do not get the help they need.
“So much depends on access to quality rehabilitation and other support services, both in prison and especially post-release,” he said, where decent support, housing and employment are vital.
No longer a staffing ‘crisis’
Bradley said treatment in prisons for alcohol or drug addiction or mental health issues was “chronically underfunded, very difficult to access, and totally inadequate in terms of meeting demand”.
Young echoed this point, saying rehabilitation and reintegration services were woefully understaffed.
Mitchell said staffing shortages might have played a role in an upward trend in recidivism rates since 2020/21.
“It’s much easier to be able to deliver when the staffing levels are no longer in crisis.”
There are currently 334 vacancies for 4843 Corrections officer roles, while the attrition rate has dropped to 7.7%, down from 13.4% at the end of 2023.
A Corrections spokesperson said services for mental health, addiction support, and accommodation and reintegration are available to sentenced and remand prisoners.
The Government made a law change last year to have more rehabilitation programmes for remand prisoners, though this is yet to begin.
“Work is under way to expand rehabilitation programmes for remand prisoners following the additional investment for this in Budget 2024,” the spokesperson said.
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Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.
