November 02, 2017
Driver licensing part of prison fix
The head of the Howard League for Penal Reform wants the new Government to pick up a Maori Party initiative to get young people licensed to drive.
Mike Williams says the Corrections Department isn't coping well with prison overcrowding, with the prison muster now over 10,000.
He says reversing a 2013 change to the bail law would help reduce the number of people, especially Maori, being locked up on remand but more also needs to be done to take young people off the track that leads to prison.
For three out of four Maori inmates, it starts with a driving offence, and the Howard League has programmes in Hawkes Bay, West Auckland, and Whangarei to help young offenders get their driving licence.
"That'll stop them going to jail in the first place and what we would like to see is an extension of the Maori Party policy which was announced in the last Budget but never implemented into putting money into getting driver's licences for young Maori. That would have an immediate effect on reducing the prison muster and getting these people off a pathway that leads to jail," Mr Williams says.
The majority of prisoners are functionally illiterate and a lot of the Howard League's work is getting volunteers into prisons to teach reading so prisoners can cope once they are released back into the community.
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