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The Green Party’s justice spokesperson Dave Clendon says New Zealand needs to spend more money on crime prevention rather than building more prisons.
Mr Clendon has endorsed a report from the Just Speak group, Unlocking Prisons, which proposes alternative approaches to sentencing and imprisonment.
He says international experience shows that investing in drug and alcohol treatment, properly funded mental health services and, properly resourced rehabilitation and reintegration services will deliver safer communities.
Instead successive governments have spent enormous sums of money building more prisons to incarcerate more New Zealanders under the guise of so-called ‘tough on crime’ initiatives.
Mr Clendon says there are real advantages for the offender, their community and New Zealand as a whole in regarding prison as the last possible resort.
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