Power Simon: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Power Simon: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:647;Page:16365] 
8.  
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
 to the  
Minister of Corrections 
: Is he satisfied with the effectiveness of non-custodial alternatives to prison; if so why? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 Yes. Imprisonment remains the only option for more serious offenders from whom the public must be protected. Those prisoners are of course spending much longer in prison than they did under that member’s Government previously. However where the offence is such that the judge does not regard the offender as posing a significant risk and where the alternative sentence would be a very short sentence in prison the judge now can choose a non-custodial sentence. Why am I satisfied with the choosing of non-custodial sentences? Firstly because the compliance rate is very high; secondly because there is a much lower rate of reconviction for people who have served a home detention sentence rather than one in prison; and thirdly because it relieves the burden on the taxpayer of putting offenders into prison for a short period of time whereby they lose their jobs their families have to be supported and the cost is three times as high as that of home detention. 
Simon Power 
: Is it worth saving the cost of a few prison beds when last year 48 offenders absconded from home detention—offenders who included a rapist an arsonist drug manufacturers and dealers violent robbers and burglars—and can the Minister confirm that five of those offenders are still on the run including one who first absconded in December 2005 2 months after the last election? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: What I can confirm is what the member did not say which is firstly that there is a 98 percent rate of non-absconding and secondly that there is a 98 percent rate of compliance. The actual numbers the member is talking about are 48 out of 2500 which means that home detention has a far better track record than many other forms of custodial sentences particularly in terms of non-reconviction and non-reoffending afterwards. That makes the community safer. 
Martin Gallagher 
: What is the basis for the Minister’s statement that more serious offenders are now serving much longer sentences? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Under the 2002 legislation the minimum sentence for aggravated murder moved from 10 years to 17 years with some sentences being as long as 30 years. Preventive detention was broadened and the number of people on indefinite detention has been increased where public safety is a factor. Under the parole legislation people on average were doing 52 percent of their prison sentences under National; now they are doing 72 percent of their prison sentences. 
Simon Power 
: Is it worth saving the cost of a prison bed by allowing a former high school teacher to serve a 1-year sentence on home detention when he was convicted of indecent assault against three of his female students—a decision that left the mother of one of the victims “absolutely gutted”? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The decision as to who gets a non-custodial sentence is made by the judge who hears the facts of the case and sums up the level of risk. I remind the member that although most people on home detention today are there for the less serious offences under back-end home detention which was introduced and carried through by the National Government most detainees were people who had committed very serious offences and who were serving sentences of more than 2 years in prison. Under this sentence nobody is sentenced to home detention other than those who would have had a very short prison sentence which indicates a low level of risk. 
Martin Gallagher 
: What evidence is there that New Zealand’s sentencing regime is somehow soft compared with those of other developed countries? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: There is absolutely none at all. Over the last 20 years the New Zealand prison population has increased from 91 per 100000 people to 188 per 100000 people. Since the early 2000s the number of new prison beds has increased by over 2300. If one looks at the rate of imprisonment in New Zealand one sees it is much higher than the rates in Australia the United Kingdom and most European countries. The idea that New Zealand has to have a much higher percentage of people in prison just does not stand up against the facts. It makes sense to keep the worst offenders in prison for longer which is what we are doing and to have the less serious offenders doing their sentence in a non-custodial way which produces a lower rate of reconviction and reoffending. 
Simon Power 
: In order to save a prison bed is it worth allowing a Hawera man who admitted violently shaking a 6-month-old baby boy to the point of unconsciousness to be sentenced to 9 months’ home detention when the judge said that if it had not been for a change in the sentencing legislation he would have had no trouble in sending him to jail? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Let me reiterate that the decision as to whether an inmate goes into a non-custodial or custodial sentence is in fact made by the judge himself or herself. If the judge in that case decided to put the offender into a non-custodial sentencing regime then it was because the judge did not regard the person as being a risk or as warranting being kept in a prison situation. That is the end of the facts. 
Simon Power 
: Does the Minister stand by his statement that “I think the general view of New Zealanders is that persistent and serious violent offending whether against children or anyone else is not the sort of offence that should rightly be considered for home detention”; if so can he now categorically state that the 28 percent of home detainees with violence convictions are all minor first-time offenders? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I can reiterate what the member already knows but pretends not to: the only cases that receive home detention are those cases where the judge taking account of the injunction on him or her that the safety of the community must be the paramount consideration regards the offender as being of a very low level of risk and as being more appropriately placed under a non-custodial sentence than a custodial one. 
Simon Power 
: Why did the Government promise New Zealand First it would review the types of offenders who are being placed on home detention and then promptly ditch that review after making home detention a stand-alone sentence? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The home detention sentence was reviewed and we decided that the people who were being let out of jail early to go on home detention by the National Government people who were rapists murderers serious robbers and violent offenders ought not to get that discount. That is why back-end home detention was scrapped—the very home detention that was introduced and supported by Tony Ryall who since pretends that he is tough on crime. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Because of the nature of that question I was rather keen to hear the answer as New Zealand First was mentioned. All I heard was a cacophony of screaming from Mr Ryall Mr Mapp Nick Smith and the whole hundred yards down there and from behind us and we could not hear the answer. I would like to know that on the very wise intervention we made with regard to Mr Goff there was an answer. I have yet to hear it. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the Minister please repeat his answer. We will have it in silence so that we can move on. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: It is ironic that those who were interjecting were the very people who supported the previous soft policies. The answer that I gave was that the previous policy of back-end home detention allowed inmates out of jail at a discounted sentence. They were inmates who had invariably committed very serious offences including rape murder robbery and serious violence. That aspect of home detention—back-end home detention—has been scrapped by this Government and the current home detention on a judge’s sentence is for those who are at the less serious end of offending: those whom the judge determines to be low-risk and who otherwise might have had a prison sentence of only a couple of months.