Opportunity to reform our under-performing prison system

The Salvation Army strongly supports the recent comments by Deputy Prime Minister Bill English that prisons are a "moral and fiscal failure and no more should be built".

Salvation Army social policy spokesman Major Campbell Roberts says it is time to develop alternative punishment policies that actually reduce the rate of criminal offending and the high levels of recidivism that imprisonment currently delivers to the New Zealand public.

The current regime of imprisonment without widely-accessible, coherent and evidence-based prisoner rehabilitation programmes, drug and alcohol treatment and careful reintegration of prisoners back into the community does not improve the safety of New Zealanders and it is becoming a burgeoning fiscal expense, he says.

“In fact it is questionable whether the $100 million or so to be spent on the new super prison at Wiri is a rational purchase and whether the cash would be better spent solving recidivism more effectively by other means,” he says.

In 2006, The Salvation Army report, Beyond the Holding Tank, made a number of recommendations calling for Government action.

They include:

• Establishing a multi-party accord on crime and justice aimed at shifting all political debate to issues of researched fact and policy
• A public education programme providing high-quality, user-friendly data about the New Zealand justice and prison systems that counter the inaccurate and sensationalised views often dominating the media
• A review of the implementation of legislation with a view to reducing the number of offenders remanded or sentenced to prison
• An increase in the availability of restorative justice, faith and cultural-based prison units and other rehabilitative and restorative models
• A plan to ensure all prisoners are actively involved in employment or vocational training.

The Salvation Army hopes Mr English’s leadership in this area is embraced by all political parties.

“There is a real opportunity here that New Zealand could become a world leader in turning around criminal offending,” Major Roberts says.