A new release on life

Enhancing staff capability and ensuring offenders comply with their sentences.

Corrections’ recently formed prison release teams are offering a more specialised service to manage released prisoners.

Every Community Probation & Psychological Services (CPPS) service centre in New Zealand now has probation officers especially assigned to manage offenders released from prison. In larger CPPS offices these staff are organised into dedicated prison release teams.

Managing released prisoners is generally more difficult as they have more complex reintegrative needs than offenders serving a sentence wholly in the community.

Members of the teams specialise, with more senior staff dealing with the most troublesome or high-risk offenders.

Mangere Service Centre Manager Tony Fink says he’s very happy with the way his prison release team is working.

“The team arrangement not only ensures that more experienced and highly trained staff deal with higher risk offenders, it also supports mentoring and provides a clear back-up system when staff take leave.

“We’re more accountable than ever before,” he says.

At present they are managing around a hundred offenders a week, including doing home visits and conducting special assessments at each report-in for the three child sex offenders on extended supervision orders on their case load.