Collins Judith: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCollins Judith: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10679. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections): It is a pleasure to be able to take a call on this matter. I would like to acknowledge my ministerial colleagues involved in the area particularly Amy Adams and also the chair of the Law and Order Committee Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi; the Justice and Electoral Committee chair Jacqui Dean; and all of the members of those committees. I know that they are all very hard-working committees. I am particularly pleased that the Law and Order Committee is also helping us come up with some solutions—hopefully cross-party solutions—to some of the issues around gun crimes and the increasing use of guns particularly by gang members and serious violent offenders. So it is one of those things where it is good to see a committee working so hard to come up with something hopefully very sensible—Tim Macindoe: The public welcomes it.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —and the public does welcome that sort of contribution from us.Can I say that it is great to be back in the justice sector and it is particularly great to be able to say that one of our four big priorities when we first came into Government was around reducing crime. One of the first things we did was to bring 600 extra front-line police into the New Zealand Police. It made a huge difference particularly the 300 going into the Counties Manukau or South Auckland policing district. What we have seen is a reduction in the crime rate. We sought to reduce violent crime by 20 percent and reduce youth crime by 25 percent by 2017. We have exceeded two of those targets. Since the base period of June 2011 the recorded crime rate has fallen by 16 percent violent crime has fallen by 8 percent and youth crime has fallen by 38 percent. There are 52448 fewer crimes now since that time. This is a huge improvement and in addition to that we can always look to do better as well.I think one of the things that has been very helpful is the use of technology particularly in the police around the use of smartphones—first off iPads and then smartphones—and actually being able to access information about offenders and being able to input information as the police are at the job and not afterwards.I saw very recently a very good innovation with the smartphones. The police were able to record with a victim’s consent the statement of a victim of family violence at her own home immediately following the police having arrived at the house and finding out what had happened. This saves the victim so much effort in having to leave the home often with children in it and going into a police station. After all she has not done anything wrong. It also helps to prevent the offenders and family members from getting to the victim or trying to stop the victim from continuing to give evidence. This is something that is being trialled in Palmerston North. I have been really thrilled to see that it seems to be making a real difference already—particularly for victims who are then spared this very difficult and tortuous process of having to give a written statement to a police officer often in times of deep distress.One of the good things with this process is that the police are looking at the technologies they have and thinking about different ways of using them. Often when we look at some of these really good innovations it is not rocket science but it does not happen unless we have the technology available and we have an attitude that says that actually police officers can come up with great ideas. Let us trial them and if they work let us help them.Family violence is one of our big frontiers when it comes to dealing with crime. We have 41 percent of police front-line staff time spent on family violence issues. It is around about 20 percent of all police work. It is far too high. At least in this country like Australia we do actually acknowledge that it occurs and that it is a very serious problem. But frankly we need to do a lot better and that is why the Minister of Justice and I and other Ministers—17 of us—are involved in cross-Government work in this area. It is something that should be concerning to us all.In addition to that I can say I am very pleased with some of the work that has been going on in the Department of Corrections. I know that the Committee will be thrilled to know that Serco paid us $8 million yesterday. It is so much better to actually get the money than to say it is coming. Guess what? The cheque was not just in the mail; it was there. That was great.Also we are seeing some really good work going on in rehabilitation particularly drug and alcohol treatment. I am really pleased to see that we have been able in the first term in office to double the number of prisoners who can access drug and alcohol treatment from the measly 500 which we inherited to 1000 and now that is going to be growing by up to 4000 hopefully starting next year. So we are going to put a big effort into that.There is a lot going on in our prisons too around working prisons so that all of our prisons are becoming working prisons. I know that all Kiwis will join with me in a silent cheer when I tell them that some prison directors who have come from overseas—OK; it is the UK—have said to me things like: “In New Zealand prisoners want to work.” That is apparently unusual but not in New Zealand—our prisoners want to work. I was really proud of them when they said that. I thought: “They are good our Kiwis. Well OK some of them are very badly behaved but they want to work.” So that is a good thing. They see work as being of benefit to them and of course it gives them something—skills—that they would not have otherwise.Just recently I was at Rolleston Prison in Canterbury and saw the 34th house that the Department of Corrections has rebuilt from in some cases very damaged properties—Housing New Zealand Corporation houses. It was being trucked out the gate off to its new home and to its new tenants. That is the sort of work that I think New Zealanders want to see our prisoners doing—learning new skills getting a great outcome and helping other people who are actually in some cases worse off than themselves. I hear that that was very well received.We often hear quite a lot about the prison population in New Zealand. I am often hearing it quoted that it is the second-highest in the world. Well that of course is complete rubbish. What it is is that we are ranked seventh in the OECD for imprisonment rates and 72nd in the world. We are nowhere near the second-highest in the world. What would be great is if we were to have fewer people in our prisons but while they continue to commit violent crimes and where they continue not to be safe on remand then they will continue to be sent to prison. When they are then I will be happy to help house them. We have had to deal with that and I think it is probably a good thing that we have been prepared to do that. It is not a good thing that they are committing crime in the first place.There are lots of things too that we could do further in this portfolio and I am really pleased that the Department of Corrections has agreed with me and I have agreed with the department that mental health is one of the areas that we need to do better in in our prisons. So the House can expect to be hearing more on that. It does not take a rocket scientist to work out that in the late 1980s and early 1990s when essentially modern Western countries decided to empty out the mental institutions we actually ended up filling up the prisons instead. That should not have been a surprise to anyone really but that is what happened.I am not saying “Let’s go back to those days.” because these mental institution patients did not have the same rights that people in our prisons have. I think it was a pretty horrendous situation for many people. But do we need more beds for those forensic patients? Yes obviously we do. But unfortunately it is the sort of thing where in some cases prison is going to be the safest place. We are working on something right now at Auckland prison at Pāremoremo where there is a very secure unit being built. It is in fact going to be able to house and to treat prisoners with mental health issues who do not pass the threshold where they need to go to the Mason Clinic but who exhibit very serious behaviours including self-harm and harming others. I am very pleased about that.I also want to see more work in the Department of Corrections—and the department certainly agrees—on making sure the Out Of Gate care is better as prisoners leave prison. We do not want to see them back again. There has been a huge improvement in that over the last 7 years but there needs to be even more. In particular we could spend all the money that there is but actually that will not solve the problem until we deal with the issue of gangs and their influence. If you want to look at who reoffends more it is gang members. They are twice as likely to reoffend as non - gang members and are twice as likely to be in prison for serious violent offences and for the selling of methamphetamine. These are the sorts of situations we are dealing with. This is not just a Department of Corrections problem it is not just a police problem and not just a justice problem. Basically the way I see it when families fail Child Youth and Family and the social welfare system comes in and when that fails so does the justice system.