Budget 2024 and 2025
Major Budget decisions are subject to additional reporting requirements under Cabinet Minute ECO-24-MIN-0231. Corrections has one major budget decision that requires a report for Budget 2025, and two major budget decisions that require a progress report for Budget 2024 as at 30 June 2025.
Prisoner Population*
*The title combines the Budget 2024 initiative, 'Prisoner Population – Responding to Increasing Prisoner Numbers', and the Budget 2025 initiative, 'Corrections Prisoner Population and Other Volume Pressures'.
To manage a growing prisoner population, the majority driven by changes to Justice Sector policy settings, Corrections received $803.2 million over five years through Budget 2024, followed by an additional $492.2 million over five years in Budget 2025. These initiatives reflect the Government’s commitment to maintaining public safety while responding to increasing demand across the prison network.
The initiatives address increased costs to manage the growth in the prisoner population including additional frontline workforce to ensure staffing levels align with the capacity and service requirements of the prison system. A significant portion of the funding is allocated to increasing the number of corrections officers, which is why this workforce measure has been selected as a key indicator of progress, alongside actual prisoner population levels compared to funded growth.
This funding is critical to ensuring the prison network continues to operate safely, securely, and humanely. Performance will also be assessed against the expectations outlined in the Estimates of Appropriations, under the 'Public Safety is Improved' multi-category appropriation.
Our progress as of 30 June 2025
- At 30 June 2025 Corrections was managing 10,783 prisoners. The actual prison population was 783 prisoners above the Budget 24 planning assumption of 10,000.
- The total actual corrections officer Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs) increased to 4605 which is 170 FTEs higher than the corrections officer FTEs requirements based on a prison population of 10,000 prisoners to manage higher population level.
- To manage prison population above funded levels, Corrections has made internal reprioritisation decisions and is operating with a sub-optimal level of custodial staffing resilience, absorbing additional operating costs within existing baselines.
- Budget 2025 adjusts the funding base for Corrections, based on Justice Sector Projections prison population of 10,860.
Rehabilitation Programmes – Extending to Remand Prisoners
This initiative proposes providing a consistent and effective level of rehabilitation and reintegration services to the remand prison population. The aim is to support the Government's Real Consequences for Crime policy, which seeks to expand access and improve reoffending outcomes. Corrections received $48 million over five years through Budget 2024 to support this work.
Our Progress as of 30 June 2025
Corrections plans to provide targeted services and interventions to meet the needs of remand prisoners. This will include enabling remand-convicted prisoners to commence their offence-focused rehabilitation, where appropriate.
The initiative aims to reduce reoffending, enhance public safety, and create better futures for New Zealanders.
The review of all rehabilitation programmes has been completed, and a high-level plan for providing consistent and effective programmes and services to remand prisoners has been developed and approved by the Executive Leadership Team. Site-specific implementation will begin in the first quarter of the 2026 financial year and will roll out across all prison sites with remand populations.
The success of this initiative will be monitored through tracking the number of remand convicted prisoners attending offence-focussed rehabilitation.