Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
The Corrections Minister is looking at scrapping short prison sentences in favour of longer ones, in the hope of reducing reoffending.
Mark Mitchell said people with longer sentences have more access to rehabilitation and therefore more successfully re-enter society.
The idea is only being looked into, but it's Mitchell's preference if it led to fewer victims overall - even if it required building more prisons due to an increase in the prison population.
"When violent offenders receive short sentences or are released without proper rehabilitation, it puts the public at risk. I have asked Corrections to look into how short sentences relate to re-offending with a view of gaining a better understanding," Mitchell told RNZ.
"We want to see offenders turn their lives around and become meaningful, contributing members of society.
"With that comes tough decisions to ensure serious crime leads to serious consequences, alongside investing in programmes that break the cycle of reoffending," Mitchell said.
The Opposition is scoffing at the idea though, with the Greens and Labour both saying it goes against the evidence and would come at a significant cost.
Labour's Justice spokesperson Duncan Webb. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Labour's Justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said it was "depressing" the government couldn't come up with better solutions.
"It's the usual rhetoric about putting people in prison for long periods of time.
"We know that whilst imprisonment is necessary in some cases, in terms of reducing crime in the long term, putting everyone in prison simply doesn't work."
Webb said rehabilitation was "absolutely" important, but said the lowest reoffending rates came from those who were sentenced to community sentences where they could access drug and alcohol programmes and rehabilitation programmes in the community.
"The correction system at the moment doesn't have the resources to deliver them. The community is the best place for that."
He said they had to address offending and risks of offending at the "earliest possible stage," and by the time people were put in prison "you've missed the boat."
"Prisons are a waste of money... they are unbelievably expensive to build and unbelievably expensive to manage," Webb said.
"We should be putting money into where we can avoid crime, which is into education, into health, into addiction and into mental health and building more prisons is building a big concrete ambulance."
Mitchell, however, pushed back on the previous government's approach to corrections.
"For too long, the balance in our justice system has shifted away from accountability, and this government is taking action that puts victims first, ahead of offenders."
"My top priority as Corrections Minister is keeping Corrections staff and New Zealanders safe," he said.
Greens justice spokesperson Tamatha Paul. Photo: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone
The Greens justice spokesperson Tamatha Paul told RNZ longer and harsher prison sentences do not lead to better outcomes.
She said it was "extremely expensive and costly", not just financially, but the "human potential that it will waste, and the families that will be torn them apart for longer as a result of this policy."
Paul pointed to criminologists who considered the issue, and what happened in prisons, and said it was "pretty clear" that "sentencing is not a silver bullet."
"The thing that this government loves to do is they like to create this assumption that every single person that is in prison has done a violent, heinous, serious crime.
"That is simply not the case."
She said the idea of making people stay in prison for longer because of "public safety" didn't match up with who was actually in prison, given shorter sentences were due to more minor crimes like burglary or theft.
Paul said the government seemed to think they could "continue to just build prisons and prisons and prisons and keep filling them up" and that was good policy.
"The best policy decision would be actually reducing the drivers of crime, things like poverty, homelessness, mental health and addiction issues, the presence of drugs in our communities, those are the kinds of things that actually help to reduce crime."
She said researchers, criminologists, lawyers and judges had said this over the years, but "we have a government that is completely agnostic towards that advice."
The Department of Corrections declined an interview with RNZ. Photo: RNZ / Blessen Tom
The Department of Corrections declined an interview, but provided a statement regarding Minister Mitchell's suggestion.
Policy Research and Performance Director Emily Owen confirmed the department was doing work to "better understand reoffending among people serving short prison sentences."
"This work is in its early stages and remains ongoing."
Owen also said public safety was their "top priority."
"It's important we deliver effective and efficient rehabilitation which delivers the best possible results to reduce reoffending."
Currently, the on-site prison population is 10,548 - a number that fluctuates due to arrests, releases and decisions made by the courts.
In regards to staffing, there are currently 334 vacancies. The turnover of staff has been decreasing since a high of 18 percent in 2022, and currently stands at 7.7 percent.
"Overall, frontline staffing levels are increasing thanks to the lift in recruitment and a reduction in turnover."
The department's Annual report for 2023/24 showed that in 2021/22, prisoners with longer sentences were less likely to be reimprisoned.
Senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Auckland Dr Ronald Kramer acknowledged this, but said most people "age out" of reoffending.
"The longer you're imprisoned for, in some sense, by default, you probably won't reoffend simply because you've aged out."
He said if the Minister was "interested in rehave, then focus on doing rehab."
"You don't actually need to do that in a sort of longer custodial sentence."
Dr Kramer said the idea overall didn't make "sense" and it was an overreach in terms of the separation of powers,
"Judges are actually pretty good at what they're doing."
He also spoke of the potential policy "messing" with the "ecosystem" in place when it came to established ideas for what a "reasonable" punishment was for certain behaviour.
"Judges have a duty, for lack of a better term, to keep things relatively consistent and balanced.
"So the minute you start pushing for harsher, longer sentences or whatever, you create ripple effects and problems for assessing all kinds of behaviours."
He also criticised the cost of the policy, given the Minister's acceptance it would cause the prison population to increase, and the potential need to build more prisons as a result.
He said the coalition talked about needing to be "fiscally responsible", but when it came to punitive systems "all of a sudden there is so much money."
"Which one is it? Do we need to control budgets, or do we have money lying around? Can't be both, right?
Senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Otago Dr Fairleigh Gilmour said it was "technically true" those with longer sentences were less likely to be reimprisoned, but pointed out it was more complicated than that.
Firstly, she said many of those serving long sentences in New Zealand were there for sex offences, who had a lower base rate of reoffending.
"So this is the key variable that is impacting: the offence type not the time in prison."
She acknowledged longer sentences could sometimes mean more access to rehabilitative programmes such as reintegrative, employment and education services.
But she said the issue with this policy was the prison population would "massively increase" and access to those services would reduce for logistical reasons.
"It is an illogical approach.
"If reintegration, rehabilitation, education and employment services are working, we should fund them better and offer them to more incarcerated people."
Dr Gilmour said Corrections was "understaffed" and these programs were already "under-resourced."
"The most likely outcome of increasing the prison muster by lengthening sentences will be to reduce access to these programs and thus increase reoffending and increase the number of people victimised in our communities."
Her colleague in the same department, Dr Peyton Bond, said longer sentences were "kneejerk, short-term responses that ignore the mountains of evidence that show that longer sentences do not reduce harm in society and rather harm young people who enter the criminal justice system early."
She said addressing the root causes of crime meant prioritising access to "healthcare, safe and warm homes, and food for themselves and their families."
"Longer prison sentences reduce people's ability to access these things after their prison sentences."
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