October 19, 2023
Push back plan for prison boost
Māori-led group People Against Prisons says ACT and National should expect a fight over their penal policies.
The parties campaigned on a range of tough on crime measures, including military-style boot camps for young offenders and brining back three strikes sentencing.
ACT pledged to spend $1 billion to build an additional 500 prison beds, as well as 200 new youth justice beds managed by Corrections.
People Against Prisons founder Emily Rakete says most of those extra beds will be filled by Māori.
“ACT wanting to build new prisons, wanting to put children into adult prisons, wanting to put ankle monitors on children, when we seen National saying they want to return to the borstal system, we’re going to have to fight them on each of those issues because we know these strategies don’t work, we know what they’re going to do will harm Māori and it will harm children and it means we are going to have to be ready to organise and fight to push back on these policies to really defend ourselves,” she says.