Clendon David: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 21 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:65. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green):May I first begin Mr Deputy Speaker by saying that you look very at ease in the Chair and we wish you a very long and enjoyable tenure in it. Kia ora.I was intrigued today listening to the Speech from the Throne that there was passing mention of this Government’s promise to focus in the forthcoming Parliament on crime prevention. There was mention of a 35-year low in the crime rate with violent crime youth crime and reoffending rates all declining. There was a reference to a stronger response to preventing family violence with a focus on gangs and gang lifestyles. These aspirations are all things that nobody could object to or complain about. These are all well-intentioned and positive policy directions. I will take just a moment to acknowledge the former police and corrections Minister Anne Tolley who I think did a good job of effecting some change in the culture and language.Police and corrections are two very large complex multi-faced institutions. There is a great deal of inertia within them. We need to put a great deal more effort and energy into effecting real and positive change in policing in this country and in particular within our prison system because we are failing in our prison system in ways that I will reference. The Prevention First strategy the police have been rolling out for a couple of years now is a good strategy. It is an appropriate strategy but it requires funding and it requires resourcing. It is very intensive on staffing. We require a lot of officers who are well motivated with high morale and unfortunately the police budget over recent years has been flat at a time when costs are expanding. We need to properly resource the strategy if it is to succeed or otherwise it will not succeed and that would be very unfortunate.In terms of reoffending rates which the Government has taken some credit for I have seen some interesting alternative interpretations of the raw data which suggest that perhaps the picture the Government is painting about recidivism about reoffending rates may be rather more aspirational than real shall we say. I do think we need a little bit more honesty and a little bit more transparency in that because we will not resolve problems if we are in denial or if we are trying to disguise the reality the depth and the breadth of those problems.There is a reference to gangs and yes gangs are a problem in this country. Gangs are a phenomenon not unique to New Zealand but New Zealand gangs are different from gangs elsewhere. I hope this reference to a focus on gangs and gang lifestyles does not signal a return to the failed approach of being tough on crime the antagonistic sorts of street battles that unfortunately we saw in the 1970s and 80s between police and gangs. The resolution of the gang problem is a very complex multi-faced issue. It requires a multi-faceted and very sophisticated set of solutions. I am very aware of it living in Northland. There is a serious gang problem. We desperately want and need to divert our youth away from the gang lifestyles that have been so destructive but I do hope that we will take an intelligent well-resourced and sophisticated approach to dealing with that very complex issue.We heard today that there is an aspiration also to make every prison a working prison with every inmate doing 40 hours of rehabilitative reintegrative activities be it work training or whatever it might be. Again that is something nobody could object to. That is an excellent project to pursue. We also heard that there would be more aftercare for released or paroled prisoners who have undertaken drug treatment while in prison. Again there is no argument with any of that.I do think that these rather hopeful propositions do very little to reference or to acknowledge that we have a very deep-seated problem sitting within our prisons. Our prisons are de facto mental institutions. They are full of people with serious and less serious mental health problems with forms of disability both visible and not so visible. We need to acknowledge that something like 7 percent or 8 percent of prison inmates are so damaged and dangerous that they can never be returned to the community but that we can do better with the balance—90-plus percent. We need to resolve the very dysfunctional complaint system within our prison system which is not working for inmates or for staff or for the communities. We need to open the doors to enable and encourage the NGOs who have real solutions to work more freely in the prisons to work with inmates to prevent them from going in there and to deal with their issues at the time when they are released back into the community.We cannot do any of this cheaply but the greatest cost is if we continue to do nothing if we pretend our prison system is working and is performing. We need to address the problem openly and the Greens are committed to being part of that. Kia ora.