12 February 2009
A willingness to supervise offenders on Community Work sentences has come with an added bonus for SPCA Marlborough.
Carol Schofield, Manager of SPCA Marlborough, says they have benefited from having the additional labour provided by Community Work offenders for several years.
“Having an extra person around is very helpful and allows us to provide a better facility, but more recently our partnership with Corrections has provided us with an additional benefit - funding.”
“Corrections has provided us with a bit of money to help with the placement, which we’ve used to buy cleaning products,” Carol says.
“We’ve found that supervising offenders on Community Work sentence has helped our organisation and receiving funding on top of this has been a great extra benefit."
“Our involvement with Corrections provides us with extra personnel, who we use to clean animal enclosures and for other general cleaning needs.”
Having someone cleaning enclosures not only helps ensure the SPCA has adequate facilities for the animals in their care, but it also frees up a volunteer for more rewarding work.
“The offender placed with us now is really good, they’re reliable, work hard and they don’t complain about doing the dirty work.”
Community Probation & Psychological Service Nelson Area Manager Polly Cunningham says Community Work sentences require offenders to do unpaid work in the community for non-profit organisations as reparation for their offending.
“Community Work is also a practical way to help offenders learn new skills and work habits, this can assist with getting future employment which has been shown to greatly reduce the chances of further offending.
Providing support for a Community Work Offender not only provides a not-for-profit group with additional labour to help with their work, but they also may be eligible to receive funding to help the placement be successful”, Polly says.
Annually New Zealand communities benefit from almost three million hours of labour supplied through Community Work sentences.
ENDS
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