Clendon David: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clendon David: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 June 2010. Volume:664;Page:12079. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora koutou. The purpose of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill and the Act that it seeks to extend is clearly about compensating victims and indeed that is appropriate. Victims suffer loss of property they suffer physical damage and they suffer emotional and mental injuries and it is appropriate they should be compensated for that. The Greens have been very happy to support legislation that is effective in compensating victims for the wrongs done to them. 
That raises a question that I would like to pose to the Minister or to any of his Government colleagues who would like to comment. How many individual victims have received compensation in the 5 years that the Act has been in place? How much money have those people received? Give us some ballpark figures. Approximately how many victims have actually benefited and to what extent have they benefited? It is a fairly simple question but it would be interesting to hear the answer. 
There has been quite a lot of activity around the Department of Corrections this year. We certainly cannot accuse the Minister of Corrections of being idle. We have seen legislation that enables the use of court cells as holding cells for sentenced prisoners despite the fact that we know from the UK and elsewhere that that is quite a dangerous mechanism that inevitably reduces prisoners’ access to rehabilitation. It removes them from their families and at worst makes it difficult for them to be provided with basic adequate food and sanitation. We have seen an active move towards double-bunking in our prisons. Prisons that were designed for a certain number of inmates now carry significantly more than that number and that inevitably will raise tensions in prisons. It will make them potboilers and will increase the likelihood of violence and more victimisation both within and outside those prison walls. We have seen the “three strikes” legislation which takes away the opportunity for judges to make considered judgments on individual cases. It effectively takes the mandate away from judges and puts it on to Parliament. Again that is an imposition on people’s rights to be heard fairly and properly in a court and to be sentenced by that court. We have seen the way opened for private management of prisons and once again we know from international experience that that will degrade conditions within prisons. Inevitably the profit extracted from them will mean there are fewer services available to prisoners and there are fewer staff. Prisons will become more dangerous more violent and less humane places. 
A week or so ago the Law and Order Committee was treated to a show-and-tell from the Minister and her chief executive officer. We saw a demonstration of the equipment being given to guards to protect them such as helmets stab vests heavy boots batons and pepper sprays. The Minister’s solution to more violence in prisons is equipment to defend or rather to protect the officers who have the unenviable job of going in after violence has broken out to try to clean up the mess to try to resolve an incident that has already occurred. 
All of those measures are reflective of a very busy and active Minister who has a very busy portfolio. But where is the legislation that would return some justice to the victims of crime? Amongst these bills and these new policy moves it is very difficult to see anything that will contribute to the well-being of victims. We are all committed I am sure we agree to compensation being given for harm done. But where is the proactive policy where is the drive to find solutions to crime to find solutions to victimhood to recompense victims to reduce the likelihood of reoffending and therefore to reduce the creation of more victims? We are simply not seeing it from this Government. What we are seeing is activity legislation and policies that are symptomatic of a view that prisoners should lose their rights that they should be locked up for longer and that they should suffer tougher sentences. That is despite the evidence and the common-sense assessment that those strategies will simply lead to more violent societies and less safe societies and will leave the victims of crime out on a very long limb with very little support and very little likelihood of recompense. Kia ora koutou.