Increased use of Alternatives to Prison for Less Serious Offenders
Why is this a priority?
There are smarter ways than prison to prevent crime and to make criminals accountable to their victims and society. Prison is not the most effective or efficient approach to reducing crime for less serious offences. The Effective Interventions package includes initiatives to reduce the prison population, however continued growth in the prison population remains a concern.
Shorter terms of imprisonment also limit the ability of correctional services to provide rehabilitative and reintegrative programmes, and therefore potentially increase the risks that short term prisoners will be “socialised” with other offenders. Alternative sentences can be more effective than prison at reducing re-offending for less serious crimes.
New Zealand's incarceration rate is the fourth highest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Figure 4 - OECD prison populations, per 100,000 of population (2006)
How will the sector demonstrate its success?
The Effective Interventions performance framework provides the basis for monitoring whether initiatives within this programme are likely to achieve, as expected, both in relation to the programme and intervention logic. Effective Interventions will report on the percentage uptakes of new sentences, including electronic monitoring of bail, intensive supervision, community detention, and home detention.
Incarceration rates will be monitored, with the object of reducing the rates of incarceration per 100,000 of the population. Further work is being done by justice sector agencies to identify what is contributing to the rising prison population, in order to identify further options to reduce the prison population in the short to medium term.
Further measures will also be designed with the advent of the Sentencing Council.
Cost effectiveness can be measured at a minimum in terms of the reduced growth in the prison population, but also in terms of broader benefits associated with reduced re-offending, and other negative health and social outcomes associated with incarceration.
