Clendon David: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — In Committee 
Clendon David: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:10941] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 I have listened quite carefully to the debate—and in particular to the support for this bill tonight—as I have in earlier debates and have endeavoured to understand why anyone could think that this bill is a good idea and will achieve its stated purpose to make our communities and our people safer. I see nothing in this bill. It is completely contrary to any evidence anywhere in the world to suggest that a regime like that proposed in this bill will make our people—our communities and our public—safer. 
We have heard a lot about statistics and numbers particularly from Mr Garrett earlier. It seems that he is making the classic mistake in interpreting research of confusing correlation with causation. The fact that two things happen at more or less the same time does not suggest that one is causing the other. 
David Garrett 
: No I said I’m not sure because I’m not a socialist and I’m not God; I’m not sure. 
DAVID CLENDON 
: Dear me! I do wish that Mr Garrett would find a new insult because that one is getting positively boring. We have heard a great deal about numbers and clearly from that side of the Chamber there is a preference for arguments that can be reduced to a cost-benefit analysis. Those members give us numbers and statistics putting aside for a minute that social values are very much more difficult to establish than dollar values. 
Even in terms of dollars we can look at the Californian example which is so oft quoted. Again I had the pleasure of hearing the Rev. Givens when he spoke in Wellington a week or so ago and he quoted some really interesting numbers. He referred to the Californian prisons as the most expensive rest homes in the world. They have very old prisoners prisoners well into their fifties and older. The average cost of keeping a prisoner in Californian jails is if I remember correctly a little in excess of $35000. California is now discovering that keeping prisoners into their fifties and beyond is costing the state on average closer to $140000. No social benefit is gained from doing that in relation to those extraordinarily prolonged sentences for people who have admittedly committed serious crimes or in some cases not particularly serious crimes. Those prisoners are imposing an incredible cost on their communities on that Government and on that state. 
We have already seen in recent times that this Government has passed legislation to allow private prisons to allow the use of court cells on the understanding that apparently we are obliged to do that. We have seen double bunking in jails and the making of containers into cells because we cannot cram any more people into our jails yet we are imposing this extra cost on ourselves by putting provisions in this bill. The denial of parole will put people away for longer periods with no social benefit but with significant social cost. 
I think the most insidious thing about this bill is that it is saying that we in this Chamber tonight—the majority who might seek to pass this bill—know better than judges what sentence they ought to pass in future for crimes not yet committed and whether parole should be allowed and if so at what point. The notion of mandated sentencing essentially means that we do not trust the judges who are appointed to our courts. It suggests that we can make better decisions about the sentences and the parole conditions given for individual cases on a very one-size-fits-all generic basis. That is not only wrong; it is lazy. It is unethical it is immoral and it ought not to be done here. 
I think that one of the most powerful impacts of the Rev. Givens’ presentation which some of us took the time to see was not only in the numbers and the words—we had heard those we had read those—but also in some of the images he showed. The direct outcomes of a regime like that is to put more people in jail for longer in what are already overcrowded prisons. He showed images of hundreds of men inhabiting what was once a gymnasium with bunks stacked three high and with scarcely enough room in the aisles to walk through. I saw those images and immediately wondered how they were smuggled out of prison because surely that could not have been allowed. In fact those images were put out by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and show a best-case scenario. Those were the best images the department could muster from that appallingly inhumane regime which it is now proposed that we should impose on ourselves and on our prisons. 
There is no deterrent effect from longer sentences; we know that. Research internationally tells us that. The deterrent is the likelihood of being caught. We should put more money into policing and into preventing crime because there it will do some good. Longer sentences are not a deterrent; we know that. We know that is as true in New Zealand as it is in California.