Garrett David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Garrett David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12727] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 We know that many who go to jail once are likely to reoffend and return to jail. This carries a huge economic and social cost as housing prisoners is not cheap. The Minister of Finance said recently that on present trends the Department of Corrections will be the biggest Government department in 2 or 3 years and that is an utter tragedy. Although the ACT Party has focused on ensuring that the most violent offenders are put behind bars longer and we make absolutely no apology about that we would much rather have no one committing a second-strike or third-strike offence. To achieve that it is important that we turn round our appallingly high reoffending rate. The key to that it seems or at least part of it is to ensure that prisoners are reintegrated into society successfully. Halfway houses can go a long way towards achieving that end. New Zealand already has some halfway houses run by the Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society and the Salvation Army and they are doing a great job in trying circumstances. 
However the research I have done suggests that what we really need are places with 24-hour on-site supervision of former prisoners. We have only three of these currently—in Hamilton New Plymouth and Christchurch. Canada is often cited in the House as a model to look up to and I understand that Canada has had a very successful experience with such models. In that country almost all long-term prisoners after their sentences are placed in halfway houses with live-in supervisors. Here is the killer: their reoffending rates are five or six times lower than here. In our view that more than anything explains the successes in Canada as opposed to here. Although the supervisors in those institutions in Canada closely monitor the former prisoners they do not clean up after them. It is the former prisoners who do their own shopping cooking and everything else that comes with being free. 
With such a high success rate we must question why we do not invest more funding in such projects here. A successfully rehabilitated prisoner costs the State far less than having to remand him—it is usually a “he”—in custody for his next offence put him on trial then house him again in prison. It is well known and often quoted that the cost of doing that is $90000 or so a year. In our view hand in hand with a tough policy for those who do not wish to be rehabilitated or who are too dangerous to be in the community we must seriously consider funding more halfway houses here. The current system is clearly not working when we have recidivism rates approaching 80 percent after 5 years and it seems that the Canadians have offered us a model in rehabilitation just as the Americans have offered us a model for locking up the truly dangerous. 
If we do not do something to decrease those reoffending and recidivism rates we will continue to have a revolving door system with prisoners inevitably ending up back where they started. We could forgive those in the corrections service for despairing and wondering why they bother. If we do not look at rehabilitation programmes the Minister of Finance will sadly be proved correct in that most or a very large part of our taxes will be spent on prisons. I urge the Minister of Corrections to consider using part of Vote Corrections to establish the kind of houses that appear to be working in Canada and thereby assist to get our recidivism rates down. Thank you.