Offender Volumes Report 2007 Summary - Corrections Department NZ

The Offender Volumes Report (OVR) is a new electronic publication that will be published on Corrections’ public website, http://www.corrections.govt.nz
The OVR replaces the biennial prison census that was conducted from 1987-2003.
The report provides offender trends right across Corrections’ work not just the prisoner and home detainees information and trends found in the prison census.
The report covers all Corrections’ managed offenders and individuals and includes those: prison sentenced, remanded, prison release ordered and community sentenced.
The OVR contains breakdowns of offenders by age, gender, ethnicity, offence type, sentence type and length, and a range of other variables.
Provides a Corrections’ perspective of the management of offenders.
The information provided by the OVR will inform resource planning and help shape future Department policies.
The OVR provides analysis around top quality Corrections administrative data. It does not provide trends on things like marriage and parenting, but another report is being explored with Stats NZ to include information on prisoners available from the Stats NZ National census.
The report provides a ‘snapshot’ view of offender trends as well as a ‘throughput’ view of offender trends.
Uses a one-day-one-status per offender counting approach- an offender is only counted once in one day when they may be subject to multiple orders and sentences. This means that the OVR data may present smaller numbers than that presented in other reports because in those reports an offender may be counted a number of times under their various orders.
This one day one status per offender counting is based upon the most expensive form of management of an offender on any day where the offender has several concurrent directives. For example if an offender is subject to Remand and Community Work the more expensive directive, Remand, is identified for data analysis.
Includes some offenders with an electronically recorded history going back before 1960.
Is based on Corrections’ electronic records of Court and Parole Board directives that enable tracking of an individual’s whole experience with Corrections.
Gives annual offender management inflows, outflows and balances and transitions from one management status to another.
Gives time series trends starting from 1980.
The report is mostly about Corrections’ management of individuals, rather than overall offence patterns and the responses of the rest of the Justice sector.
The report also includes analysis of the most serious offence category related to periods of Corrections’ management.
Provides a perspective of the entire population of offenders who have recently served a Corrections-administered sentence.

	Growth in the numbers of people in prison on any day has been a long term trend. (more..)
A big proportion of the growth in the prison population since 1980 has been in numbers of 30 to 50 year olds. In 1980 prisoners aged 30 years and over made up 20% of the prison population, they now comprise 58%. This is due in part to increasing sentence length. (more..)
.	In 1980 the largest sub-group of the prison population were burglars. Now there is a far wider range of offenders held in prison. There has been a marked rise in numbers of sexual offenders over the last 20 years making that category the single largest sub-group in the prison population today.(more...)
For the first time, almost as many prisoners are held at the discretion of the New Zealand Parole Board as are being held with no discretion for release. (more...)
	On a percentage of population basis Male Maori are most seriously affected by incarceration with over 3% of male Maori 23 year olds prison sentenced on any one day. Conversely the proportion of NZ European males of the same age is only 0.4% (more...)
Each year society produces a new cohort (sub group) of offenders who between them reserve prison beds for years to come. The number of beds required for each cohort of offenders only gradually tapers off with time.(more...)
	Growth in the numbers remanded in custody has been particularly steep.(more...)
There has been a growing turnover of offenders given prison sentences but not spending time in prison with a prison sentenced status. This is due to growth in front end home detention but also growth in offenders whose time in remand is equal to or greater than the imposed sentence that must be served. The time in remand that these prisoners serve is credited against their sentence and results in these prisoners being released immediately. These offenders are still counted as having a started a prison sentenced episode. (more...)
	The median duration on remand (as measured at the end of the remand episode) is increasing and remandees are accumulating in the system with even longer stays.(more...)
Since 2002 there has been a large increase in the number short term (<=2 years) sentenced prisoners managed under post release conditions.(more...)
	The number of community sentenced offenders under management on any day has been increasing but with less emphasis on supervision now than in 1980 and growing emphasis on community service / community work.In 2007 54% of those with supervision sentences also had community work sentences at the same time.(more...)
The graph to the right represents the offender pool of recently managed offenders (managed within the last 10 years). More of the recently managed offenders moved back into Corrections’ management than first time offenders started during the last year. The proportion of the offender pool currently under Corrections’ management has been growing in recent years while the size of the offender pool has remained relatively static. (more...)
	The mix of offenders starting a prison sentenced episode on a typical day can be represented by timelines of prior Corrections’ management. With each line representing one offender and coloured zones indicating Corrections management one can see that: some offenders have long and colourful pasts, some have sporadic prior offending and only a small number going to prison have no prior Corrections’ management history. (more...)
The graph to the right represents the offender pool of recently managed offenders (managed within the last 10 years). More of the recently managed offenders moved back into Corrections’ management than first time offenders started during the last year. The proportion of the offender pool currently under Corrections’ management has been growing in recent years while the size of the offender pool has remained relatively static. (more...)

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