Dean Jacqui: Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 26 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13808. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I am very happy to speak to the Committee of the whole House stage of the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill. I want to thank the Minister of Corrections Anne Tolley for bringing this bill to Parliament and continuing the work of the National Government in providing efficiency within our corrections service. And why does that matter? Why is it so important to improve on efficiency? It is because in doing that we will hopefully have better outcomes not only for the prisoners going through our corrections system and/or on to community sentences but by aiding in the rate of non-reoffending. We do not want to see again people who go through our corrections system. We do not want to see them again experiencing community services. So the more this Government can do to make the administration of the systems around corrections more efficient then hopefully the better the outcome we will have.When the Hon Anne Tolley introduced this bill to the House and gave it to the care of the Law and Order Committee she made it very clear that that was her aim and that her desire was that in improving the systems we would improve the outcomes. Already we have seen a drop in crime. We have seen a drop in youth crime. All the trends are going the right way in the corrections system and in the justice system and this piece of legislation continues that good work. Two bills were introduced to the House to remove barriers to the efficiency and the effectiveness of the administration of corrections sentences and community sentences. The committee and the House have dealt with the Corrections Amendment Bill. That part of the work relates to prisons and corrections and that was passed through the House last month. Now we are moving in a timely manner with the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill. That is the bill we are addressing today.What this bill does is amend the Bail Act the Parole Act and the Sentencing Act. These Acts play a large part in the governing and administration of sentences and of orders in our communities through our corrections system. The introduction of extended supervision orders—and that happened in 2004—and of sentencing and parole reforms in late 2007 left some procedures for managing offenders in the community rather unclear. The previous speaker Kris Faafoi—whom I want to thank for his work on the Law and Order Committee and express my regret that he has moved on to another select committee because he did make worthwhile contributions worked collegially when it was appropriate and asked the tough questions when it was appropriate—did point out in his intervention that a community sentence with a GPS might be described as a circle on an offender’s property. Previously if the mailbox was just outside that circle the offender would be going against their community sentence if they walked out to the mailbox to get the mail or chased the cat or something like that. So there were anomalies that were easily identified. We have sought through this legislation to make the measures around community sentences more pragmatic more workable more efficient and more helpful not only to the probation service but to the prisoners themselves. This bill provides clarification and it introduces a number of minor policy changes to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of home detention community-based sentences and also the new electronic monitoring regime.I just want to talk a little bit about the probation service. As a part of our investigation into this bill we went out to Lower Hutt and met with the probation service and heard about the work it is doing with community sentences. It struck me what a long way our corrections system and our whole justice sector have come in such a short time in the desire for a good strong rehabilitative approach to reintegrating prisoners out of the corrections system through community sentences if that is the pathway or through just community sentences—reintegrating them back into society in the best shape so that they can go out have good lives get a job have skills and not return back through the loop knocking on the door of the District Court and going back into the corrections system just to waste another part of their lives. This is a good bill. I congratulate the Minister. I thank the select committee and I commend the bill to the House.