Ensuring sentence and order compliance is the Department's core business - it is critical to the integrity of sentences and orders.
Effective sentence compliance is when offenders:
Ensuring sentence compliance contributes directly to improving public safety, and maintains public trust and confidence in the justice system.
We will require offenders to complete all the requirements of their sentences, whether custodial or community-based, and apply appropriate sanctions if they do not. We will motivate offenders and encourage families, whānau and communities to work with us to ensure sentence compliance.
A safe, secure and humane environment supports a positive atmosphere that motivates offenders to comply with their sentence.
What progress will look like
We will know we are successful when we see:
Progress to date
The Department's performance in ensuring sentence compliance within prisons is good when compared internationally. Prison services are cost effective, escapes and suicides are low, and detected drug use is decreasing. 
In prisons, there have been ongoing improvements in the physical security of prisons, increased detection of contraband (including drugs and cellphones), and improved methods of collecting information to prevent crimes being committed or coordinated from prison.
Completion rates for community-based sentences are sitting at or above resourced target levels. Probation Officers are provided with training on procedures, practices and in techniques to motivate offenders to comply with and complete their sentences.
Significant development of systems and processes has been undertaken for community-based sentences to meet the demands of the new sentences, to better manage high-risk offenders, and to provide a solid foundation for enforcing sentence compliance by community-based offenders.
The Department has faced a number of years of change in the way it is required to manage community-based offenders. Many of the issues faced now are about consolidating systems, new procedures, and training new staff to ensure consistency when managing community-based offenders.
It is important to recognise that sentence compliance will always be a challenging area with both community-based offenders and prisoners. Some offenders actively resist our efforts to ensure sentence compliance, just as they have actively and intentionally violated the law when they offended.
We are generally doing well in ensuring sentence compliance. However, some serious incidents have occurred which have revealed some weaknesses in core compliance, decision making and sharing of information between agencies. Incidents such as these can have dire consequences. We need to recognise these challenges and proactively manage to prevent such situations. When significant failures in sentence compliance have occurred, the Department has learnt from these failures and made improvements.
Looking forward
Sentence compliance will be a key focus looking forward, and we will emphasise getting the basics of compliance right. We will:
Motivating offenders to comply with sentences is an important aspect of compliance. We will:
Ensuring sentence compliance requires strong collaboration with a number of other agencies, particularly the New Zealand Parole Board, NZ Police, Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Social Development. It also involves close partnerships with community groups who work with sentenced offenders. Through our partnerships, we will strengthen our work with these key agencies and groups.