General Information

Introduction

Most offenders subject to rehabilitative sentences/orders will have special conditions imposed by the court/New Zealand Parole Board (NZPB). These are designed to address the identified needs of the offender, thus reducing the risk of further offending.

The probation officer is responsible for:

• ensuring the offender complies with the special conditions, or
• taking appropriate enforcement action should the offender fail to comply.

Reference: Volume 2, Part VII, Non-compliance and Enforcement. (Please refer to the related links section on this page).

Integrity of the sentence

To maintain the integrity of the sentence, it is the responsibility of the probation officer to inform the court/NZPB if the offender is unable to comply with the special conditions.

This includes situations where the conditions conflict with each other, and situations where further assessment or investigation reveals that a specified programme is not appropriate or available for that offender.

If it is possible for the conditions to be met, but the offender is unwilling to comply, this should be addressed through non-compliance/enforcement activities.

Prioritising special conditions

At the start of the sentence the probation officer and offender should discuss the special conditions and plan how they are to be managed/achieved within the sentence timeframe. This will include prioritising the conditions and should take into account the following:

• risk/responsivity
• sentence length
• programme availability
• unmanaged addiction issues, i.e. these should be addressed before making a programme/counselling referral, and
• offender employment, i.e. where possible attempts should be made to manage special conditions around the offender's employment.

Note: When planning longer sentences, it is appropriate to develop an initial offender plan that indicates the order in which programmes are to be scheduled and then focuses on access to the first programme.

Include in the offender plan

All special conditions must be addressed in the offender plan and should include the following information:

• an activity which will meet the condition requirement
• when the referral is to be made (if required)
• the start and end dates of programmes (if appropriate), and
• the external provider for programmes/counselling (if appropriate).

If an offender is subject to more than one sentence, the offender plan must make clear which sentence(s) the special conditions/activity applies to. For example, attendance at a Tikanga Maori programme may relate to both a rehabilitation sentence and a community work (CW) sentence (via basic work & living skills (BWLS)).