Turia Tariana: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — New Zealand Bill of Rights Act Compliance First Reading 
Turia Tariana: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — New Zealand Bill of Rights Act Compliance First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1430] 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Mr Deputy Speaker tena koe. Tena tatou katoa. One week ago the federal judges ordered the state of California to release as many as 57000 inmates—one-third of all inmates—over the next 3 years. The call to let the people go was a dramatic intervention to alleviate prisons swollen by unprecedented numbers of inmates. The multibillion-dollar costs of California’s prison system the inadequate health facilities and the overcrowded cells are a grim wake-up call for this nation as we sit on the cusp of new measures that may cause massive increases in our prison population. Measures such as the “three strikes” rule tougher and longer sentences harsher prison conditions such as chain gangs and degrading treatment are measures that made Sheriff Joe famous. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona is the one who grabbed media attention by painting jail cells pink and making inmates wear pink garb. He is the same guy who dreamt up the “tent city” jail; who cut jail meals back to 40c a serving and then charged inmates for the right to eat them. The Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill is all the warning we need that Sheriff Joe has come to town. 
As the headlines have told us over these last 24 hours it is not as if the corrections system in Aotearoa is at all perfect—far from it. It is an utter disgrace to read the Auditor-General’s scathing report into a parole system that by anyone’s estimation is on the brink of collapse. How more relevant can parole reform be than when we are told that out of the cases of 100 paroled offenders examined the Department of Corrections failed to follow its own rules in nearly every case? The Auditor-General found that consideration of victims was at best scant. Paroled offenders were being accommodated in locations that could place victims at risk. Victims were not being notified when offenders breached parole conditions. They were not being regularly visited by probation officers and senior department staff were failing to give priority to the management and supervision of their probation officers in handling high-risk offenders. 
I want to make it absolutely clear. The inability of the Department of Corrections to adhere to its own parole conditions to address any breaches and the shocking disregard for the concerns about placing public safety at risk is a failure we cannot ignore. The Maori Party stands by the Minister of Corrections in her call to the State Services Commissioner to “please explain”. Her immediate response demanding that we find out who is accountable for this appalling situation is both appropriate and absolutely fundamental if we are ever to restore public confidence in the parole system. 
I remind the House that section 7 of the Parole Act 2002 states that “the paramount consideration for the Board in every case is the safety of the community.” It is a paramount consideration more important than anything else. Yet as we all know as in the recent high-profile cases public safety appears to be compromised. The fact is that restoring prisoners to their communities is a complex and demanding process and hardly takes place within the environment of a prison. Parole was designed to reduce the greater risk to the community of prisoners being released without any chance to adjust to life outside prison. Abolishing parole is not a realistic option but the parole system must be backed up with sufficient resources. 
The Auditor-General’s report brings home the true cost of the previous Government’s policy of getting tough on crims. That cost must be measured not when offenders are released from prison but only after they have been successfully reintegrated into their communities. As a nation we must examine alternatives to prison. I remind the House that the state of the criminal justice system requires a significant and comprehensive review and that is what we should be pushing for in this Parliament. 
The Ombudsman Mel Smith’s inquiry into the criminal justice system reported back at the end of 2007 recommending a high-level examination of all of the issues and of all of the approaches that we could turn to to produce a more efficient and improved justice sector. He suggested a royal commission of inquiry was necessary concluding that prison is not the most effective or efficient approach to reducing crime. He pointed out the economic and social costs of crime had risen to $9.1 billion in 2003 and were predicted to explode as the population grew with punitive policy changes. Yet that report and those recommendations are ignored. It beggars belief. 
The Ombudsman reports to Parliament that the extraordinarily rapid changes in the criminal justice policy are set to continue and that an inquiry is urgently needed to reflect on whether the punitive treadmill is picking up speed yet nothing is done. 
So is this bill the answer to such wide-ranging issues? The Maori Party does not think so. All the research we have uncovered on the “three strikes” provision indicates a number of fatal flaws with this approach. There have in fact been increased homicide rates significantly larger prison population disproportionate effect on non-violent offenders disproportionate effect on marginalised populations and significant costs and negative impacts on offenders’ families. It would appear to us that rather than investing in crime prevention and restorative justice introducing such a punitive package will work only to increase the level of dysfunction unwinding in an already suffering system. 
The issue of the disproportionate impact of the “three strikes” legislation is particularly of interest to the Maori Party. The Justice Policy Institute analysis of the racial and ethnic make-up of “three strikes” defendants in the United States reported that African Americans are given life sentences at nearly 13 times the rate of whites and Latinos are incarcerated at a staggering rate of 82 percent more than white people. In fact Vincent Schiraldi the executive director of the institute commented: “rarely does one see any law imposed so disproportionately against any one racial group.” 
There are other unintended consequences of such legislation—issues like the risk of leading to serious under-reporting of violent offending. As we know many victims of family violence just want the violence to stop. They do not necessarily want to see perpetrators locked up in long-term incarceration. And of course the significant cumulative effect on the size of the prison population—and the additional expense to taxpayers—is unsustainable. 
The analysis we have carried out on the 11 pages of this radical legislation gives us no choice but to vote against the bill. We do not believe that incarceration deters people from committing crime. We did not find any evidence that increasing imprisonment has any effect on serious crimes. And there is nothing to suggest that the cost of building prisons and incarcerating people is resulting in reduced offending. 
Last November a colloquium on Maori justice held in Ngati Kahungunu noted that 91 percent of the 2000 research participants wanted some alternative options to be considered to reduce the offending rate and impact upon the rate of recidivism. It called for whare whakaoranga—rehabilitation centres—which focus more on concentrated reform and restoration rather than on harsher prison conditions. It is not a new idea. In 1989 such a concept was presented to Mr Justice Roper in a review of the prison systems. It is but one of many positive and constructive solutions that could have been investigated rather than simply importing the worst of American policy experiments. That is where we believe any further debate on this issue should be based—on our own locally determined solution for our population. The Maori Party policy advocates that the cure is in the care and that we should support a restorative justice system where victims are empowered and the community is integral to bolster relationships and reduce crime. We will not and cannot support this bill.