According to most indicators, the Department of Corrections is achieving standards of offender safety and security, and reductions in re-offending, to a standard comparable with the best national corrections systems in the world.
However, in common with many corrections systems internationally, meeting society’s expectations and demands has become increasingly challenging.
The most critical issues confronting the Department have arisen from the unrelenting growth in the number of offenders Corrections is required to manage.
This growth (which accelerated significantly from 2003) is a consequence of a range of factors. There have been upward trends in some types of crimes, especially serious drug offending and certain types of violence, especially family violence, as a consequence of changing public attitudes and police practices. However, much of the growth is understood to be the consequence of changes in justice sector policies and operations in recent years. This includes higher Police Officer numbers, higher rates of resolution of crime, greater use of custody remands, longer average imposed sentence lengths, and tightening of parole release decisions.
All of these factors have combined to increase the volume of offenders both on community sentences, and in prison. At around 190 prisoners per 100,000 population, New Zealand has one of the highest imprisonment rates in the developed world (of western countries, only the USA is higher with almost 800 per 100,000; Australia’s rate is 126, and many European states are under 100). New Zealand also has comparatively high numbers of offenders on community sentences; for example, our community sentence population proportionally is three times higher than Australia’s.
Concerted efforts across the Justice Sector in recent years have had some effect in addressing growth in prisoner numbers, though serving mainly to slow, rather than reverse, trends. As a consequence, Government decisions are required within the next few months on strategies to address looming capacity deficits, in both the community and prison settings. These decisions relate to the need for additional staff in Community Probation and Psychological Services, and prison bed capacity.
The other major challenge facing the Department is more longstanding, and seemingly intractable – that of the over-representation of Māori amongst the offender population. Māori over-representation had been noticeable from the mid-1950s, but increased to current levels by the mid-1980s, by which time 50 percent of prisoners were Māori (as are 45% of community sentenced offenders).
Succeeding for Māori across all areas of our business is therefore a key priority for the Department, and is expressed in the strategic commitment “to succeed overall, we must succeed for Māori”.
The following information is structured according to the Department’s current strategic priorities. These priorities are outlined in more detail in the recently published “Strategic Business Plan 2008-2013”.