December 17, 2013
Challenge to cut prison muster
Reform group Rethinking Crime and Punishment wants to see targets set for cutting the number of people in prison.
Director Kim Workman says a recent survey on public perceptions of crime commissioned by the Ministry of Justice found the public has little support for the tough on crime rhetoric of the past decade.
He says the government has done a good job or reducing crime and reoffending through a greater focus on rehabilitation, but the prison population is stuck on 8600.
"I don’t know why that has happened but I think our challenge for 2014 is to set a goal which says we are going to reduce not only the crime rate by 25 percent but the imprisonment rate, because we know the more people you send to prison, the more likely they are to reoffend when they leave. We know that community sentencing is much more effective and produces a far better result," Mr Workman says.
There also needs to be a systems review of institutional racism in the criminal justice system, so there is better understanding why Maori are disproportionately arrested and tried.
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