Annual Report 2011/12

Download the full Annual Report 2011/12 (PDF, 3.2 MB)

Chief Executive's overview

This is my second Annual Report as Chief Executive and it’s terrific to see how much Corrections has achieved over the last year. For me, the highlight has been watching staff embrace new ways of operating and taking a lead role in creating lasting changes within the Department. We are transforming the way we manage offenders. This has included staff taking an active role in rehabilitation and engaging with offenders at every opportunity.

If we can turn a person’s life around, we can make a difference to the communities we live in. Reducing re-offending leads to fewer offenders and less crime, but most importantly it means fewer victims. It also makes economic sense, because the best investment we can possibly make is the investment in creating lasting change and turning people away from a life of crime. This commitment to creating lasting change in people’s lives is embodied in our goal to reduce re-offending rates by 25 percent by 2017.

As a government department, we recognise the need to be fiscally prudent, and our Expenditure Review identified a number of ways for us to improve the way we work without increasing our costs.

Some of our prisons are more than a century old and were never designed for successful rehabilitation. This year we announced the closure of prisons and units that have reached the end of their economic lives, as well as the refurbishment of Invercargill and Auckland Prisons to ensure they support us in achieving our goal of reducing re-offending.

We have moved to a new nationwide structure aimed at empowering and supporting our frontline staff in prisons, community probation, rehabilitation and employment to work together as one team focused on the offender.

Restructures are difficult for people and I have been very proud of the way our staff have managed during this time.

Our three year programme to change the way we manage offenders in the community was completed this year. The new framework supports staff to make decisions about the management of offenders and helps staff to prioritise their efforts towards higher risk offenders. We have also introduced case management in our prisons, to develop rehabilitation plans for every prisoner and help them lead law-abiding lives on release.

We have proven we can introduce ground-breaking programmes like smoke-free prisons. Robust planning 12 months ahead of the smoking ban and engagement in the programme from staff at all levels ensured that prisons went smoke-free without incident. A year on, we can see tangible benefits to the health of both staff and prisoners. Leading the world with significant changes like this can only bode well for future innovations in the corrections service.

Ray Smith
Chief Executive