The United States is not the only country rethinking its criminal justice system. New Zealand is another country that finds its current policy unsuccessful. A newly issued report issued by the organization Rethinking Crime and Punishment,“Doing Good Justice in Bad Times - Toward a Fiscally Responsible Criminal Justice Strategy,” indicates that key issues must be addressed to eliminate the high recidivism rate that is bleeding the country’s coffers, while not solving public safety issues.
The Honorable Bill English, New Zealand’s Minister of Finance, called prisons a “moral and fiscal failure,” and indicated that public safety should not come as a result of New Zealand becoming a “penal colony.” English, speaking at a Family Commission conference, attributed the rise in recidivism to be, in part, the outcome of the countries “deteriorating” prisons.
“Doing Good Justice in Bad Times - Toward a Fiscally Responsible Criminal Justice Strategy” recommends the following initiatives:
• defining what is meant by ‘public safety’
• focusing on low-level, repeat offending
• strengthening and expanding community sentencing options
• implementing a comprehensive prisoner reintegration strategy
• addressing Maori overrepresentation in the criminal justice system
• supporting the Drivers of Crime strategy*
• promoting community-based offender transformation
• backing whanau, family and community engagement
• establishing a community justice strategy
• achieving community justice through justice reinvestment.
* According to the New Zealand Ministry of Justice: “Drivers of crime refers to the underlying causes of criminal offending and victims' experiences of crime. It recognizes that certain circumstances of people's lives are associated with a greater likelihood of offending and victimization.”
The report’s recommendations are all evidence-based, and not deemed to be radical. The report states that the recommendations have proven successful in other countries, and adoption of these methods in New Zealand will end the country’s practice of “prison becoming the sentence of default.”
Source: Scoop.co.nz May 18, 2011
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