Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeAdministration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 26 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13806. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Administration of Community Sentences and Orders BillIn CommitteeHon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Corrections): I seek leave for there to be a single debate on the bill with all questions put separately at the end of the debate.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection.Parts 1 to 4 clauses 1 and 2Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Corrections): I want to take just a few moments at the beginning of this bill the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill and then I know that colleagues around the Chamber will make some further comments. Although this bill is generally concerned with matters of a technical or administrative nature I do believe that the cumulative effect of the amendments will be a considerable improvement in the overall management of community sentences and orders. For instance the bill contributes to the goal of improving public safety by better aligning electronic monitoring conditions with electronic boundaries of monitoring equipment making it easier to hold offenders to account if they fail to comply with a community-based sentence and it does address some technical problems with extended supervision order provisions.The bill also reduces the administrative burden that probation officers face and empowers them in other ways to focus more on the rehabilitative opportunities available to offenders and on the safety of the public. For example they will be able to approve basic work and living skills courses for offenders on community work without having to apply to the court. A small technical change like that can make an enormous difference in the life of the offenders as it saves all that bureaucratic hassle that they go through and also make it a better job for our probation officers. We have done some technical tidy-ups around ambiguous provisions or some of the provisions that have had unintended consequences. But overall this bill is designed to significantly improve the effective administration of sentences and orders in the community both for the officers and also for the offenders.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak in the Committee stage of the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill. We on this side of the Chamber find ourselves in the not too unfamiliar position of supporting the Government on this piece of legislation.As the Minister of Corrections said this bill is about improving the effectiveness of sentences that are served in the community and I think we will find over time that we will be encouraging where appropriate sentences to be served in the community for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that there is evidence that those offenders who have the opportunity to serve their sentences at home have a lower recidivism rate than those who serve their sentences inside a prison—I will be able to talk in much detail about that—and the second reason is obviously a fiscal one. We simply cannot continue to lock people up for long periods of time given the fiscal constraints we have at the moment.As the Deputy Prime Minister has already pointed out our prison system is both a moral and a fiscal failure. We simply cannot afford to let the level of expenditure the track the Department of Corrections is on continue. Making sure we are being much more effective with our spending and with our rehabilitation of people who are sentenced is something that I think people on all sides of this Chamber would want.I thank the submitters who gave evidence to the Law and Order Committee. This is a select committee that unfortunately I no longer have the pleasure of being on. Iacknowledge the chair of the select committee Jacqui Dean who has just walked into the Chamber for the way in which this bill was handled during the select committee process. There were some odder moments during the select committee process when we were told about the difference between a square and a circle for the purpose of the electronic monitoring of people who are on home detention. For those who are wondering about that and how that may work if someone is on electronic monitoring at home the signal that is sent to the box essentially to make sure that they stay at that residence is an electronic signal that is very much a circle. But there could be a patch outside that residence where that circle does emanate out to so technically they could be within the electronic zone of their monitoring but technically outside the address—Simon O’Connor: Is this Euclidean geometry or non-Euclidean geometry?KRIS FAAFOI: Do not ask me those kinds of questions please. Technically they could be outside the address where they were meant to be but the electronic monitoring would not be able to pick that up. So there were some interesting moments during the select committee process and certainly some of those technicalities were ironed out.I have mentioned the rates of recidivism for offenders who served their sentences in the community and for offenders who went to prison. There was a submission during the select committee process from the Salvation Army and I would like just to refer to that now. It quoted some 2009 Ministry of Justice figures that said the ministry had found that 23 percent of those on home detention in 2009 were reconvicted in the 12 months after they served their sentence. But conversely 52.6 percent of those who served a custodial sentence in 2009 were reconvicted in the following 12 months. So there is certainly hard data from the Ministry of Justice that suggests that offenders who serve their sentence at home have a much better chance of not reoffending. The numbers are quite stark: 23 percent of those who serve a sentence of home detention are reconvicted of a crime in the 12 months after they have served their sentence and 52.6 percent of those who serve a sentence inside a prison went on to reoffend.So there is good hard evidence as to why we should be investing much more time and energy in making sure we are much more efficient and effective in terms of home detention sentences. Certainly there are some people who should be serving their sentences in a prison; they cannot be trusted to be in the community when they are serving those sentences. I think those numbers also bear that out. But for those who do have the privilege—and I guess it is a privilege—of serving their sentence within our communities the recidivism rate is much much lower and we should give the credit where credit is due and make sure the community sentence regime is much much more effective.There was a range of views at the select committee about whether or not there should be more investment in our prison service. But I think that on this side of the Chamber we would certainly like to see more focus on community sentences and more investment in rehabilitation services as well. That is not to say that there is not good work going on within our prison service on rehabilitation. There certainly is good stuff going on there and the Chairperson Lindsay Tisch was I think part of the Law and Order Committee that visited some prisons where we saw some very good work. That was very starkly shown in some of the drug treatment units around the country where there is some very good intense work going on not just by prison staff but by outside agencies to make sure that these people—and these are hardened drug users who are in our prison service—are getting very intense drug treatment as well as support after they finish their prison sentences.If there is one thing that I think we should be making much of a priority it is wrapping around services for those inmates who have gone through a 3-month—I think it is—course in these drug treatment units in our prisons. They are released into thecommunity after they have served their sentences and we really need to make sure that the investment we have made in them while they are in prison does not go to waste when we release them. Many of them will go back into the same communities and the same situations and some will put themselves into situations that are very similar to those that got them into trouble in the first place and we do not want to see a huge waste of time energy and aroha I guess you could say—because some of these drug treatment courses are very much focused aroundMāori culture.We need to make sure we are getting good bang for buck out of the drug treatment units and other treatments we are putting these inmates through and we need to make sure we wrap services round them after they leave prison. Of course there is a danger to that because some will say: “We should just let them go. They have served their sentence and we don’t care about them; they are people who have broken the law.” But if we are going to make an investment in these people and try to get them back on the straight and narrow—off the drugs off the alcohol and into a place where they are not reoffending—we need to make sure we are supporting them in our communities. That means fewer victims. That is what everyone in this Chamber would want and that is why we should be making sure that there is much more intense post-release support for a lot of these people who are going through drug treatment units.Just before I conclude I go back to the usefulness of community sentences which we are debating here in this bill. As I have said a couple of times now the recidivism rate—it is not an easy word to say fast—of those people who serve community sentences is almost if not half that of those who serve prison sentences. It should be something that we as a country should look to do much much more about in cases where it is possible and safe to do so because it has been proved that people who serve community sentences do not reoffend as much as those who serve a prison sentence. It also gives the ability for those people to still be integrated within their community and to still be supported by their families or support people in the community and I think that is something that we should look to do much much more in order to help rehabilitate these offenders.Of course there is a fiscal argument to this as well. It is much much cheaper. Of the $4 billion that is spent in the justice sector I believe that about 30 percent of it is spent on corrections. It is $1.2 billion and that will grow if we do not do anything about it. We must do something about it. Community sentences are certainly one way to do something about it. The rehabilitation aspect works we make sure there is less reoffending and fewer victims and the pennies are watched too—because there is $1.2 billion of taxpayer money going into the correction system. So Labour does support this piece of legislation. It makes the community sentences much more efficient and that is why we will continue to support it.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I am very happy to speak to the Committee of the whole House stage of the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill. I want to thank the Minister of Corrections Anne Tolley for bringing this bill to Parliament and continuing the work of the National Government in providing efficiency within our corrections service. And why does that matter? Why is it so important to improve on efficiency? It is because in doing that we will hopefully have better outcomes not only for the prisoners going through our corrections system and/or on to community sentences but by aiding in the rate of non-reoffending. We do not want to see again people who go through our corrections system. We do not want to see them again experiencing community services. So the more this Government can do to make the administration of the systems around corrections more efficient then hopefully the better the outcome we will have.When the Hon Anne Tolley introduced this bill to the House and gave it to the care of the Law and Order Committee she made it very clear that that was her aim and that her desire was that in improving the systems we would improve the outcomes. Already we have seen a drop in crime. We have seen a drop in youth crime. All the trends are going the right way in the corrections system and in the justice system and this piece of legislation continues that good work. Two bills were introduced to the House to remove barriers to the efficiency and the effectiveness of the administration of corrections sentences and community sentences. The committee and the House have dealt with the Corrections Amendment Bill. That part of the work relates to prisons and corrections and that was passed through the House last month. Now we are moving in a timely manner with the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill. That is the bill we are addressing today.What this bill does is amend the Bail Act the Parole Act and the Sentencing Act. These Acts play a large part in the governing and administration of sentences and of orders in our communities through our corrections system. The introduction of extended supervision orders—and that happened in 2004—and of sentencing and parole reforms in late 2007 left some procedures for managing offenders in the community rather unclear. The previous speaker Kris Faafoi—whom I want to thank for his work on the Law and Order Committee and express my regret that he has moved on to another select committee because he did make worthwhile contributions worked collegially when it was appropriate and asked the tough questions when it was appropriate—did point out in his intervention that a community sentence with a GPS might be described as a circle on an offender’s property. Previously if the mailbox was just outside that circle the offender would be going against their community sentence if they walked out to the mailbox to get the mail or chased the cat or something like that. So there were anomalies that were easily identified. We have sought through this legislation to make the measures around community sentences more pragmatic more workable more efficient and more helpful not only to the probation service but to the prisoners themselves. This bill provides clarification and it introduces a number of minor policy changes to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of home detention community-based sentences and also the new electronic monitoring regime.I just want to talk a little bit about the probation service. As a part of our investigation into this bill we went out to Lower Hutt and met with the probation service and heard about the work it is doing with community sentences. It struck me what a long way our corrections system and our whole justice sector have come in such a short time in the desire for a good strong rehabilitative approach to reintegrating prisoners out of the corrections system through community sentences if that is the pathway or through just community sentences—reintegrating them back into society in the best shape so that they can go out have good lives get a job have skills and not return back through the loop knocking on the door of the District Court and going back into the corrections system just to waste another part of their lives. This is a good bill. I congratulate the Minister. I thank the select committee and I commend the bill to the House.Le’aufa’amuliaASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First): Today I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill at its Committee stage. I think we all agree that law and order is very important to our country. It is crucial not only to maintain order in our society but also to ensure safety and maximise security for all New Zealanders. We are all aware that some of our citizens continue to break the law some fail to behave in accordance with the law and some just do not know any better so it is impossible to imagine that human perfection is likely to happen any time soon.New Zealand First supports the move to remove barriers in managing offenders in the community in a manner that is safe humane secure effective and of course efficient. It is important that New Zealanders have confidence in our justice system and that offenders are made accountable for their actions to the community they have offended against. It is therefore crucial that the way we manage offenders in our communities is done with no room for any mistakes or any errors. We all know the consequences of mistakes. They leave communities worried about their safety something that we should not allow to happen.We read in the news this week about a 19-year-old and his girlfriend who violated a young 10-year-old girl. The Administration of Community Sentencing and Orders Bill must close the loopholes that could lead to this kind of immoral and unacceptable behaviour in our community.The Law and Order Committee report proposed amendments that were intended to improve the original bill. Those amendments are encouraging. Community-based sentences were introduced in New Zealand for many reasons. It would be interesting to see a report on any improvements made since their introduction. They are to reduce incarceration relieve the overcrowding of prisons offer a more appropriate sentence for crimes of less gravity and reduce costs to the Department of Corrections.Why then two decades after non-custodial sentences being introduced have we become a nation with too many people in our corrections system? Why is it that our Government continues to look for more ideas for being productive in building more prisons and enhancing the high incarceration statistics in New Zealand? Are people in New Zealand committing more crime or are people just enjoying being involved in criminal activities? It is time for us to look at other techniques to prevent crime. Whether this bill is the answer is I think a crucial question.This bill seeks to ensure we do not trap people in a web where they constantly come in and out of prison wasting their lives and adding more burden to the taxpayers. New Zealand First knows that the provision allowing community magistrates to alter or cancel a community-based sentence previously imposed by a community magistrate means that this will allow the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections to approve changes of address for home or community detention. Hopefully it will not be the same mess created in the “Beast of Blenheim” case. Although New Zealand First recognises the valid intention behind this approach I would like to mention here the need for accountability to be maintained. Shifting administrative responsibility should not create cover-ups or loopholes in terms of accountability.This bill has also been amended to allow a probation officer rather than the court to direct that up to 20 percent of a community work sentence of at least 80 hours be spent in training. This is a good initiative. This is a good way forward. As a strong advocate of rehabilitation and reintegration I cannot emphasise more the need for the probation service and the Department of Corrections to work together to manage community-based sentences. This bill in general will give probation officers more powers in directing a proportion of community work sentences into training. Reducing barriers to enable training for offenders should be encouraged.And yes offenders need training but New Zealand First asks what the cost is to the taxpayer. How many offenders with community work sentences actually need training? This information is important and would necessitate funding for relevant resources as well. From previous reports there were concerns that with the increased imposition of community service there is evidence that those sentenced to it are more likely to be those who would otherwise have received fines but could not afford them.It will be crucial that probation officers use these new proposed powers with discretion. No doubt there will be conflicting ideas and differences of opinion betweenwhat the judiciary and probation officers may recommend. In terms of the sentencing hierarchy we are making a change here through this bill giving what were once the powers of the judge to the probation officers. Guess what that means? I believe it means that the Minister of Corrections has complete confidence in the probation service to perform these vital roles for New Zealanders. Does she have that? I would like to hear a response from the Minister or for her to take a call and answer this question. What evidence does she have to confirm her confidence?It is interesting to see the recommendation that a court may not cancel or replace the first sentence if that sentence was imposed by a higher court but may instead remit the matter to the court that imposed the first sentence. Let us just hope that the higher court will always get it right. Consistency in our judicial system is important and the administration of community sentencing orders must always be aligned across all Government departments. If something is to be implemented it should be done to the best of one’s ability to achieve the maximum quality results.To do so however one needs the right tools to do the job. The probation service will need to be sufficiently resourced to ensure that mandatory pre-sentence reports are done to the correct and highest standard. This will also ensure that when offenders are directed to training the probation service has the time to organise the best appropriate programmes for offenders—not just someone who comes off the road and says “I can do this. I can deliver it. Just because I can talk to the prisoner I have the best programme to ensure that this person does not offend again.” In recent years there have been a lot of cases where placements in programmes for various offenders have been poorly assessed.A probation officer can now review the suitability of the home detention residence or curfew address. This is when the court defers the commencement of a second sentence of home or community detention for more than 2 months and indicates that for the purpose of determining when post-detention conditions commence any concurrent or cumulative home detention sentences will be treated as a notional single sentence.The other part of the proposed amendments includes where an appeal against a home detention sentence is unsuccessful. There is a requirement for the registrar of the appeal court to notify the controlling officer of the relevant probation area and the offender if they are not in court of the date on which the sentence resumes.So community safety is vital and absolutely a priority for our nation. New Zealand First strongly believes that to achieve effective law and order in our nation the public should have confidence in our judiciary our police and the corrections system. I believe we can all accept the fact that for a nation of our size we have far too many people in our corrections system. Let me once again remind the National Government that a genuine Government is not a searcher for consensus but a moulder of consensus. New Zealand First supports the initiative to fix up the loopholes and supports what this bill intends to do.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to rise and speak in the Committee stage of the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill. Labour is obviously supporting this bill. As has already been said the bill makes a number of technical amendments predominately to Acts and a few policy changes that Phil Goff who was the Minister at the time I believe presided over—the Parole Act in particular and the Sentencing Act in its original form.Before I get into the detail of the bill I do want to make some general statements about the justice area as it relates to community-based sentencing in particular. We have had Ministers from that side of the House trumpet for some time now that there has been a decrease in reported crimes that the National Government’s “tough on crime” stance has been the cause of this reduction and its much-heralded success. The honesttruth is that actually globally there have been drops in recorded crime. There has been much interesting debate as to why this global trend has occurred and there have been some very interesting theories but there seems to be consensus that it does not necessarily come down to the domestic policies of a Government. So that is an interesting contextual point to make.We do hear constantly in our domestic politics about this “tough on crime” line both by the National Party when it was in Opposition and as an ongoing sentiment when in Government. But what changes when National comes into Government is the way it is executed—“tough on crime” in rhetoric but suddenly it is OK with things like home detention which we are debating today. At the time as I recall when Labour trumpeted the need for these kinds of sentences and for community-based sentences there were some Government members who were vehemently opposed to any exploration of those kinds of sentences. So it seems extraordinary to me that the Government maintains this rhetoric whilst actually acknowledging that what Labour has always been is smart on crime. We do what works. We listen to the evidence and the research and we invest where it is necessary. We are willing to be bold and courageous and to invest in areas like community-based sentencing because not only as Bill English has said it is a fiscal imperative because the justice sector is costing us so much but also you see reduced rates of reoffending when you use methodology like this.Surely the focus should be on how you balance the need for someone who commits a crime to pay their debt to society with ensuring that we make the community safer by ensuring that we actually change something for that person’s life both in the way that they are reintegrated into society and also in the way they are rehabilitated. There are flaws—I know the Minister of Corrections knows this. I know she knows it because quietly behind the scenes she is doing things a little bit differently but not letting it undermine her “tough on crime” sentiment. She knows that ultimately things have to be done differently if we are to make any gains in this area. Even Bill English has stipulated that.I also want to highlight as I have said home detention. From 2007-08 and 2008-09 the offenders who were sentenced to home detention in that period who were reconvicted in the next 12 months sat at around 21 percent and 23 percent respectively. That was less than half the number of those released from a short-term prison sentence in the same years where reoffending rates sat at around more like 50 percent. So not only do you see a significant saving for the taxpayer and not only do you see those offenders pay their debt to society by the constraint on their liberty albeit in a different form than a formal imprisonment but we actually see that the success rate attached to that is much much better. So there are many reasons why the strategic use of these community-based sentences and things like home detention should be encouraged and used appropriately.In the face of that kind of evidence we still see a National Government that is inclined to talk about the corrections system moving more towards a privatised model. We saw this U-turn this claim that it was not going to turn existing public prisons into private prisons and it was going to do it only to new builds. But then it did it anyway with theSerco contract at Mt Eden prison. That actually sits in direct conflict with what the Minister has been trying to do on the rehabilitation side of things within the corrections portfolio. She may claim that groups likeSerco have an interest in these areas and can deliver the kind of rehabilitation in the corrections system that she is driving for but the Minister knows that as soon as you drop down in your staffing ratios the less time that you have with prisoners out of their cells and the less time that is available for you to offer those programmes it upsets the entire system. The Minister knows that because she also knows that those are the kinds of arguments that are madeby prison officers all the time. Properly staffing prisons is a key part of ensuring that we can deliver those much-needed programmes so that we do not waste time and send someone back into the circle of reoffending. They are inextricably linked with proper staffing and proper support of staffing in corrections facilities and that is something that I have no doubt we will continue to raise with this Minister—the very unsafe environments which I know exist and which corrections officers are exposed to.Coming back to the bill I mentioned that there are some substantive policy changes but then also some more technical ones. I had a couple of questions for the Minister on some of those. I know she will excuse the fact that I was not part of the select committee process. One of the changes to the Sentencing Act in particular allows pre-sentence reports for home detention or community detention. Offenders are sometimes sentenced to home detention and that requires an assessment of home circumstances to ensure suitability. There are some changes there also on I think post-release where the writing of those reports are handed over from the probation service to the chief executive. I just wondered about capacity to ensure that that handover can be managed properly and ensure that it is happening in a timely fashion. There are also changes that have been made to when home detention is cancelled when a subsequent sentence of imprisonment is applied. A court cannot order that an existing home detention sentence resumes once someone leaves prison. That is just a common-sense change. Again it demonstrates why Labour is in support of these amendments.Also there is an alignment of electronic monitoring conditions with the range of monitoring equipment. That was something that Kris Faafoi touched on and I will not traverse that again but it did make me wonder Minister whether or not there were elements where it related to the developing technology and whether or not there was a way that that did not need to be included in primary legislation given that there might be ongoing amendments of a technical nature that relate to the technology as it updates. That would prevent us from having to come back to the House with primary legislation to ensure that issues like this are dealt with. I do not know whether or not that was ever feasible but it was a question that I thought I would raise. But in that change it says that offenders may go beyond the boundaries of electronic monitoring equipment without breaching their conditions because although they may stray from the electronic boundary they must remain within the residence boundary. This makes it difficult to successfully prosecute.Alongside that in one of the technical amendments is the requirement to tell or inform someone with a home detention sentence of the boundary that they have applying to them and to tell it to those who live on the property of the boundary that applies to the prisoner as well. I wondered whether or not there had been cases where you had been able to prosecute Minister because it was found that they were not properly informed. Is that one of the reasons now to close that loophole that is in the legislation? I wondered whether there had been any cases where the combination of those two issues had led to unsuccessful prosecutions around breaches of conditions. It was just something I was interested in. Also it seems common sense that if someone has a boundary applied to them for home detention they would be told about it but I guess there have been circumstances where that has not happened given that it is now going to be clarified in the legislation.There is a question here as well around ensuring the integrity of the sentences. Time continues to run on a community-based sentence after an application to vary or cancel this sentence is made. So that means I believe that if there is non-compliance the sentence can actually be put on hold until there is a variation and then it resumes. What kind of time period—I am not sure; the Law and Order Committee members may have discussed this—may apply for that variation? I would be interested to know how longthat is suspended for. I am assuming that of course they still required to comply but the sentence itself is suspended. So they still have to be compliant during the variation but they then have to technically fulfil the sentence afterwards. That would be my understanding but I would be interested to have the Minister correct me if I am wrong in that sense.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): I rise to make some comments on the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill. I begin by saying that we all acknowledge—in fact the Government spends a lot of time telling us—that we have a lower crime rate although I think that the reality is we have an increasingly lower prosecution rate. We know that police officers and the police force have been instructed to minimise the number of charges that they now lay against offenders and that therefore reduces the prosecution rate. It makes the figures look good but there is a real question about whether the crime rate is actually dropping.That said once we get to the offenders themselves and certainly the convicted offenders policies that are focused on both correction and rehabilitation are much better than those that are focused just on the more punitive elements that go with incarceration. So that is why as a general principle we in Labour are supportive of this bill of this legislation and indeed—as I think Kris Faafoi acknowledged credit where credit is due—of some of the measures that the present Minister of Corrections has taken to assist those who are presently incarcerated to make a real fist of adjusting post-release. We know that there are good programmes in the prisons now on literacy on work readiness and on community readiness if you like—getting ready to go back into the community. I was greatly privileged in the visit that I Kris Faafoi and Darien Fenton took toPāremoremo prison earlier this year to see one of the programmes in place and the efforts that had been taken to have people adjust ready for post-release.But it is better if we can avoid incarceration—acknowledging that there needs to be a punishment and acknowledging that there needs to be sanction. Where it is at all possible for sentences to be served in the community—whether through home detention through a curfew or through other community sentences—that is surely better. And just as we can say with some certainty that there are some people for whom prison is inevitable because of the nature of their offending their violent personality or their antisocial personality equally we can say that there are some people for whom prison is completely the wrong thing. They may act antisocially they may be committing crimes—certainly at the low end of the scale—and generally they will be younger people. They are the ones whom if we possibly can avoid it we should avoid sending to prison. So a community-based sentence is entirely appropriate.We welcome this legislation which tidies up some of those aspects and that enables the courts to deal with community sentences that need to be extended or adjusted or amended. There is now a process for doing that. That gives probation officers whose role is to get close to offenders in the community and manage their rehabilitation in the community greater scope to assist the offenders for whom they are responsible to adjust and to adapt. That hopefully—we are optimistic and we should be confident—will lead to a lower recidivism rate and a more effective process for rehabilitation. So we welcome all those aspects of it.We should not forget that people with community sentences particularly curfews and home detention and indeed those people who are required to provide work and contribute their efforts for a certain period of hours still have a restriction on liberty. There are plenty of people in the community who forget that it is the restriction on liberty that is the ultimate punishment for people whom when they offend against our criminal statutes we call for sanctions upon. It is that restriction of liberty that is the sanction. But we need to make sure that having done that in this sort of way themechanisms and the tools that we have to manage those sorts of sentences are effective and offer sufficient flexibility.We know with electronic monitoring that there has been a problem and I know that the regime or the governance of our electronic monitoring in the criminal justice system has been changed so that the Department of Corrections now has a responsibility for it. That is right. We have had people who have not only breached their electronic monitoring conditions but absconded while on home detention. We have had the dreadful and unfortunate situation of the offender in Palmerston North who was on home detention and being electronically monitored who managed to get away—not just get out of Palmerston North but get out of the country. He went to Canada and ended up murdering a person there earlier this year. So it is good that we are beefing that up.In terms of Part 2 the new arrangements or the flexible arrangements for amending and changing sentences make absolute sense. And in terms of new section 66A inserted by clause 18A I will acknowledge that I think that is a good change to allow some of that community service when it is for 80 hours or more to be regarded as training. I acknowledge that and congratulate the Minister on what I think will be a very good move. It will allow those who have to do work by way of penance for their offending to actually get something out of it beyond just work experience. They will get something that they can show for it—certification of what they have done and their skills. I think that will make a big difference to the sorts of people who find themselves as candidates for this sort of sentencing.I want to simply add a word of caution about one aspect of it. I know that this has been through the Law and Order Committee and my colleagues on the committee and indeed the Labour caucus have supported it but I do want to just make a note of caution really with my pedantic overzealous justice hat on—because you cannot be a justice spokesperson without being a zealot on occasions—in relation to new section 69JA inserted by clause 22A and new section 80FA inserted by clause 27A and that is about the role of the chief executive. We know that the way this operates is of course that it is not the chief executive. It will not be Ray Smith sitting in his office approving all these changes of residence and locations for the way these sentences are going to be served out; it is going to be somebody in the Department of Corrections who will have this responsibility.My concern is that these sentences are imposed by judges by officers of the court. They carry a judicial imprimatur and a proper judicial sanction. There is oversight by the probation service—that is kind of the operational end of the criminal justice system. I understand all that but I get a little nervous when it comes to adjusting and changing what are effectively orders of the court. They go to an official the identity of whom may well be unknown and therefore the accountability for that may be somewhat diffuse. I simply raise that point and get it on the record so that in the unfortunate event and hopefully unlikely event that something does go wrong with this administration that has been noted. I am sure that a conscientious Minister of Corrections for as long as she is in the role at least would at some point want to review the practices that emerge around all this and the track record and if it calls for it and if there are too many unfortunate events want to maybe look at whether it is appropriate for a senior official within the Department of Corrections to be making or mandating these changes or whether or not it should go back to the court—even the registrar of the court—or at least to have some expedited process within the court to ensure that the decisions that get taken with regard to the offender who is being managed at all times have the imprimatur of a judge in terms of the sentence the offender is serving and carrying out.Notwithstanding all that as my colleagues have said we support the legislation. It does have the potential to offer some good and effective changes and a more positivefuture for those offenders who find themselves in this situation but who can be managed in the community can serve out their time and suffer the sanction that is imposed on them and turn out to be good citizens at the end of that. That is a welcome development.JAN LOGIE (Green): I am pleased to take a brief call on behalf of the Green Party in support of this legislation the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill. I hope the Minister of Corrections is coping with the Greens supporting two initiatives in 1 week. It is possibly groundbreaking. I do want to offer formally in this Chamber congratulations on the change in the policy around transgender prisoners. It will make a huge difference to people’s lives and that is a wonderful thing.We are supporting this legislation. It is absolutely consistent with our view in terms of justice and the best evidence of what works in this country. We recognise that primarily it is made up around administrative changes to make the system more efficient in relation to community sentences and orders in the community but there are some minor drafting amendments that are significant in terms of policy and we also support those.The drafting amendments are primarily to the Sentencing Act the Parole Act and the Bail Act. The minor policy changes will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of home detention community-based sentences and the electronic monitoring regime. That relates mostly it seems from my reading of the bill to now matching when an offender is released into the community with electronic monitoring to ensure that they are living in an area that is capable of being monitored by that electronic monitoring system. That just seems an incredibly logical thing to match. It does not really seem very sensible that people are being released into areas that cannot be monitored in this system and apparently there are some occasions where offenders have been on community sentences and they have been bunking out on them and on occasion have not been found until the end of that sentence.I guess the core of our system working is that people take responsibility and they are held accountable for their actions. Clearly that was not the case with the system in that situation. So an amendment to ensure that there is the ability for an application to be made to vary or cancel the sentence to match that and to ensure that they are held accountable does seem to be appropriate and consistent with the intent of the legislation.We also support the move to focus more on rehabilitation. Clearly that is something that works for all of us. Enabling probation officers to direct up to 20 percent of sentences to be spent in working and living skills courses without the need to apply to the court is also a really positive measure. We all know that sometimes education can make a difference as well as those wraparound services that people have talked about. We certainly would like to see more investment in those because we believe that they really work and the evidence shows us that. To streamline that system to enable people to get access to those things is just a sensible and good thing.This bill is around improving that system of community-based sentences. It has been mentioned earlier but it is worth restating that we know that the recidivism rate is much lower with community-based sentences. Clearly part of that is going to be because there is a threshold in terms of the seriousness of a crime and the likelihood of somebody being caught up in criminality that would be more likely in a prison environment but it is also because of the nature of the sentencing. There is something about the limitation of somebody remaining in their community that can hold them into more positive outcomes at times. This is something that potentially saves us money in that financial bottom line. It is a good social result and a good economic result.We would like to encourage more of those kinds of solutions so we are supporting this bill.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am happy to take a brief call on the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: So are we.CHRIS HIPKINS: My colleague Clayton Cosgrove is very excited about the fact that I am speaking on this bill. I want to just begin by placing a caution around the use of official crime statistics because in my view 99 percent of official crime statistics are rubbish because they are very easily manipulated. They are based on reported crime normally and there are a whole lot of factors that impact on whether in fact the crime is reported in the first place. I am getting some very interesting looks from Mr Sabin over there but official crime statistics are very easily manipulated.In fact if we look at them over time—which is often where we use crime statistics; we look at them over time—actually societal norms around what is reported often changes. If you look at official crime statistics for domestic violence for example the reporting of domestic violence is now more common than it used to be. A lot of domestic violence previously went unreported but there are a whole lot of reasons why a lot of the domestic violence that takes place today still goes unreported. So the official crime statistics can often be incredibly misleading and I think we need to be a little cautious—Mike Sabin: You can’t report what you don’t know about.CHRIS HIPKINS: I know about it. I know quite a lot about it actually. And we need—Mike Sabin: No no—I say people can’t report what they don’t know about.CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes that’s right. People cannot report—absolutely. But that simply reinforces the point that the official crime statistics can be misleading and that we need to be very careful about placing a lot of emphasis on official crime statistics when we are making decisions.I do want to however compliment the Government for this piece of legislation actually because this is the sort of legislation that the National Party would have likely railed against when it was in Opposition. In fact it did rail against many of the very measures that are in this bill and that it was vehemently opposed to when it was last in Opposition. I am pleased to see that it has seen the light and in fact it is now willing to make decisions in this area based on what actually works. If we want to get serious about reducing recidivism and reducing reoffending we do actually need to look at the evidence of what works rather than looking at what is going to be popular because those two things are quite often very different. No Government and no Opposition ever won votes by promising to be soft on crime and no Government or Opposition ever lost votes through the reverse. It is very clear that there is definitely a public appetite for Governments and for political parties to be hard on crime. There is a clear public appetite for that. But actually things like many of the measures contained in this legislation actually—Mike Sabin: I think it’s being effective on crime.CHRIS HIPKINS: Effective on crime? That is quite right actually—we do need—Mike Sabin: Effective policing effective on crime.Andrew Little: Telling cops to lay fewer charges is not being effective on crime.CHRIS HIPKINS: Well actually Mike Sabin makes a very good point—it is about being effective on crime. But Andrew Little also makes an even better point which is that telling cops to under-report crime does not actually make us more effective on crime at all. Unfortunately there is enough of that going on at the moment where crimes are going unreported and they are not being recorded in the official crime statistics. That does not mean that they are not happening; it just means that they are not being adequately reported. I think that is fundamentally wrong.David Shearer: Take a call Mike.CHRIS HIPKINS: I am actually looking forward to MikeSabin’s call on this bill. We have still got plenty of time and he has a lot to say on this bill. I think it would be a real shame if the National Party were not to allow somebody like Mike Sabin—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Ex-policeman.CHRIS HIPKINS: —an ex-policeman who clearly has a lot of experience in this area to take a call. I think it would be very disappointing if the National Government were not to allow somebody who knows something about this to actually—Mike Sabin: I don’t need to because the member’s threaded enough of my comments into his speech.CHRIS HIPKINS: —speak on this. In fact I am happy to give up the rest of my time. If he would like to speak on the bill I am happy to give up the rest of my time.Mike Sabin: No you’ve clearly articulated my position.CHRIS HIPKINS: He does not actually want to say anything on this legislation even though I offered him the remainder of my speaking time. Clearly he does not want to say anything on this. Clearly the National Party has told him to keep his head down and stay quiet. I think that is rather unfortunate.I said that this was going to be a brief contribution and I intend it to be a brief contribution because I know that my colleague Louisa Wall wants to say something before we do run out of time in this debate. Overall I think that these are welcome measures. I look forward to seeing them progressing through the House.LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora Mr Chair. Thank you very much for this opportunity to contribute in this Committee stage debate on the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill. It is a shame that my colleague Jan Logie unfortunately cannot also reap some of the praise that I want to give to the Minister of Corrections. I want to acknowledge the announcement yesterday in terms of transgender and transsexual prisoners. I think it is not a bold move but a move that she has made based on the evidence and also based on the work of people like Jan Logie to advocate for our transgender community.My contribution to this debate is really to highlight again the contribution that our probation officers give to the whole smooth running of the justice system. Actually if there was one thing that I really wanted to highlight it is that this piece of legislation now empowers them with more responsibility and with more opportunity to do their job which is to quote from their website to “protect the public and help reduce re-offending by supporting offenders by bringing about positive changes.” So I see that the opportunity that this piece of legislation gives to them will actually enable more robust relationships with community organisations.One of the things that I have seen in my electorate of Manurewa and the probation service that we provide is that a lot of the community work that the service tries to find is actually about reintegrating and enabling some of our offenders whom for whatever reason—drunk-driving family violence issues—we want to reintegrate. Some of the specific connections that we were trying to encourage in my electorate were work in schools for example and work supporting not only sports organisations but also some of our social sector organisations. The overall theme and strategy about enabling people to contribute and feel like they are part of the community is I think completely underlined in this piece of legislation. I do want to congratulate the Government on what it is doing.We have some challenges in the justice system. Too many of our young people—and actually older people—are doing things particularly around alcohol drugs and public behaviour which mean that one of the mechanisms we have is to sentence them to home detention or community detention. The overall strategy and philosophy that thispiece of legislation is bringing in is really about giving people second chances and enabling them to feel like they do have a pathway to a better life and a better contribution.I particularly want to focus I guess on the translation of some of the community work to people being able to do courses. I think it is a really constructive thing for the justice system to encourage so I am particularly encouraged by this general philosophy. It seems that there is a consensus right through the Committee in terms of this kind of justice engagement. We want people to get the support and help that they need so that they do not stay there for life. I think that is one of the biggest challenges when I look at who is in prison. Because of the Wiri Prison being developed in my community I have a relationship withSerco. I have been to Mt Eden prison. I know that this type of philosophy we can start at this lower offending end of the spectrum but it actually needs to permeate right through our criminal justice system. In terms of this philosophy I am really encouraged.I again want to congratulate the Minister of Corrections and also the people who worked on this bill. I am not on the Law and Order Committee but I acknowledge those members of the House who are. I do see this as another constructive opportunity for us to work together. I think all of us do not want people in prisons. We want to stop building prisons. We actually want to make sure that people who do enter the justice system at this end—the beginning end I guess—of what could be a pathway for them being in the justice system for life actually have a pathway out. That is why I particularly stand in support of this bill and commend this bill to the Committee.Part 1 agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 269 in the name of the Hon Anne Tolley to new Part 1A be agreed to.Amendment agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 269 in the name of the Hon Anne Tolley to Part 2 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.Part 2 as amended agreed to.Part 3 agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 269 in the name of the Hon Anne Tolley to insert new clause 46A be agreed to.Amendment agreed to.Part 4 as amended agreed to.Clause 1 agreed to.The question was put that the following amendments in the name of the Hon Anne Tolley to clause 2 be agreed to:replace “section 34(1)” in subclause (1) with “sections 34(1) and 46A”;replace subclause (2) with the following new subclause:(2)Part 1 Part 1A section 27C section 32 so far as it relates to section 80ZGD and section 46A come into force on the day after the date that this Act receives the Royal assent.; andomit subclause (3).Amendments agreed to.Clause 2 as amended agreed to.Bill reported with amendment.Report adopted.