Appendix 1: Overview of the Justice Sector

The New Zealand Justice System
New Zealand’s justice system includes constitutional arrangements and legal frameworks, civil and criminal structures and processes, police investigation and apprehension of offenders, judicial process and dispute resolution, and management of offenders in prison or on community-based sentences and orders.

It includes all the processes that citizens and the State are required to follow to ensure equitable dispute resolution, and the balancing of the rights and obligations of the State and individuals, and between individuals.

In order to ensure the effective management of the New Zealand justice system, the various agencies involved have recognised the need to operate as a cohesive sector.

The Ministry of Justice has a pivotal role in leading the work of the Justice Sector.

The Justice Sector
The New Zealand Justice Sector works for a safe and just society where communities are safe and civil and democratic rights are enjoyed by all, such as the right to vote, the right to a fair trial and the right to have a grievance considered.

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The sector comprises the Ministry of Justice, Department of Corrections, New Zealand Police, the Crown Law Office, the Serious Fraud Office², Ministry of Social Development (regarding Youth Justice matters) and a number of Crown entities and other agencies.

The Justice Sector is large and diverse, touching on all areas of New Zealand society. It covers criminal, civil and democratic processes. The sector includes police and court work, imposing and collecting fines, running prison and probation services and managing general elections.

A snap-shot of activity in the justice sector
On average, every day of the year (250 working days for Courts; 365 for the Police, Child, Youth and Family and Corrections):

• Police answer 1,931 emergency calls and 2,963 other calls
   
• 1,169 crimes are recorded
   
• 830 on-road speed traffic and 3,900 infringement notices are issued
   
• more than 10 jury trials are disposed of in the District Courts
   
• 26 youth justice cases are referred to Child, Youth and Family, and 24 Family Group Conferences are convened
   
• 815 cases are disposed of by the criminal summary jurisdiction of the District Court
   
• 163 applications are made in Disputes and Tenancy Tribunals
   
• 365 applications are made in the civil jurisdiction of the District Court and the Family Court
   
• approximately 7,900 people are in prison, and 33,900 offenders are on community-based sentences.

The sector also:

• employs more than 29,000 staff, and operates from over 500 sites around the country
   
• administers more than 180 individual Acts of Parliament
   
• makes 14 million electronic data transactions per year through 32 separate electronic data interfaces
   
• manages 405 gigabytes of criminal data in the justice data warehouse, which is updated daily.

This diagram shows the key stages and government agencies involved in the adult criminal justice system.

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Collaboration and Coordination
The Secretary for Justice provides leadership to the Justice Sector as a whole and chairs the Justice Sector Chief Executives Group, which meets monthly and provides oversight and direction for the sector.

Justice agencies have a number of mechanisms in place to ensure that sector agencies are working together to achieve desired outcomes for the sector. These include:

• Shared outcomes framework and performance information, which supports coordinated planning and improved understanding of the effectiveness of initiatives and interventions across the sector.
   
• The Justice Sector Information Strategy enables agencies to access relevant, current information and operate from a shared perspective; and data systems investments to take into account the impact on other justice agencies.
   
• The shared justice sector budget process supports sector planning processes and means that Ministers are provided with advice about shared funding priorities, the relative contribution of initiatives to shared outcomes, and the flowon impacts of initiatives on other parts of the Justice Sector.
   
• The Justice Sector prison forecast provides the sector with a shared view of future capacity constraints in the justice system (based on existing policy settings), including the underlying drivers of growth.
   
• Sector wide collaboration on policy development, which includes the work that the Ministry of Justice, Police, Law Commission, State Services Commission and other agencies have undertaken on the development of proposals and legislation to combat organised crime in New Zealand. This work includes the creation of the new Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand.
   
• Sector wide operational forums for co-operation, which support collaboration and improved understanding of operational issues and flow-on impacts.

Current Challenges for the Justice system³

Civil
The justice system plays a vital role in the economy. By enforcing contracts, the court system gives individuals and companies the certainty they need to enter into business agreements.

A well functioning court system supports economic activity by providing a timely and enforceable means of resolving civil and commercial disputes through the High Court, District Court, Disputes or Tenancy Tribunal.

For the system to be effective, the courts need to be accessible. Cases need to be heard within a reasonable time frame. However, in the High Court, and in Auckland in particular, there can be lengthy waiting times for civil fixtures. Further, under current settings, civil disputes cannot always be resolved through the courts at a cost that is in keeping with the nature and scope of the dispute and the enforcement of the resolution (for example, the collection of civil debt can be unduly lengthy).

Criminal
Over the last decade total recorded crime has decreased, both in absolute numbers and per head of the population. During that period, the offence categories with the highest levels of offending have been dishonesty, drugs and anti-social, and violence (in that order). The reduction in total crime is mainly due to fewer dishonesty offences, such as theft, burglary and fraud.

Some types of crime have increased, including violent offences and property damage.

Despite the reduction in total crime, there has been significant growth in volumes dealt with throughout the New Zealand justice system. For example, growth in the prison population has been due to an increase in the use of imprisonment since 2002 and an increase in the average time served by prisoners. This has had significant fiscal impact, creating a need for additional prisons to be built to meet demand for prison beds and placing strain on court capacity.

Imprisonment also has wider social and economical costs and impacts on families, communities and the labour force.

Real expenditure has increased significantly for the Justice Sector since 1999; 21 percent for Police, 29.7 percent for the Ministry of Justice and 76.7 percent for the Department of Corrections. This growth reflects a period of significant increase in demand for services.

Since 2001, 68 percent of additional expenditure provided for Corrections supported increases in custodial capacity and 42 percent of new Police funding has been used for improving capability and capacity. The most significant investments in the Ministry of Justice have supported the implementation of new legislation, new services, and restoring capability and capacity.

The recent introduction of additional non-custodial sentences has reduced the number of offenders being imprisoned on shorter sentences. However, prison forecasts suggest there are still underlying growth factors that will lead to an increase in the prison population. In particular, the average time served by offenders on some longer term sentences continues to rise, and the average amount of time served on remand also continues to increase (primarily because of the increase in jury trials).

In order to achieve increased value for money the sector will require a response that will:

• address the underlying causes of crime in the medium to long term, including focussing on early interventions for at-risk children and their families and whanau
   
• reduce opportunities for offending and re-offending
   
• enhance victim satisfaction with the criminal justice system
   
• alleviate short term prison capacity issues.

While there are a number of opportunities for improving efficiency within the justice system that will help reduce pressure on prison capacity in the short term, the most promising avenue in the long term lies in tackling the underlying drivers of criminal offending and re-offending. To do this, the Justice Sector relies on interventions in the health, education and social development fields.

This approach requires ongoing integrated action between many government agencies. Agencies involved to date in this work include the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Treasury, the State Services Commission, the Department of Corrections, the New Zealand Police, the Law Commission, Te Puni Kōkiri, and the Ministries of Justice, Social Development, Health, Education, and Transport.

_{2 The Serious Fraud Office (Abolition and Transitional Provisions) Bill was before the House when Parliament was dissolved
before the general election.}

_{3 For more information about trends in criminal justice, see The New Zealand Criminal Justice Sector Outcomes Report (2008) at http://www.justice.govt.nz/pubs/reports/2008/criminal-justice-sector}