May 31, 2023
Corrections set to be election flash point
Corrections Minister and Labour deputy leader Kelvin Davis says crime is likely to be a major election issue.
He says ACT and National are promising policies that will mass incarcerate brown people.
The steps Labour is taking to tackle crime and reduce the number of people ending up in prison are working – while locking more people up hasn’t worked anywhere.
“We can’t let the mass incarceration of brown people for example just go unchecked or unchallenged or the country just expects the prison population has to go up when it doesn’t. If we invest like the Government has done in preventing people going to prison in the first place, preventing children and young people getting into trouble, that is the way to go,” Mr Davis says.
He says rapid intervention with youth offenders such as ram raiders is having a 78 percent success rate, compared with the 85 percent failure rate of the boot camps favoured by Opposition parties.
He says a change of government would also threaten continued investment in Maori education, housing and economic development.