O'Connor Greg; Rurawhe AdrianGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): As a much younger man I worked as an undercover police officer which meant living among criminals and with them. One thing I learnt about prison was that quite a vulnerable time to me was when someone came out of prison. Because when these people came back into the scene that I was in they were the first ones to recognise there was a new face there because they expected to come right back into the place that they had left and they invariably did and they invariably began their offending again.And that even as a younger man sowed the seed with me that we've really got to do better that when people do come out—I often am a great believer that the fact of prison is as important as the length of the sentence and that the certainty of capture is one of the most important things in crime prevention making people believe they'll get caught which makes the Labour Party policy of increasing the number of police by 1800 a very positive one. Because more and more people out there will believe they are going to get caught and that will have a greater impact on the prison population than anything.But the other thing that really I did learn is that when we send people to prison there is a tendency to sort of treat 'em bad lock 'em up. But one thing I believe—and this is not only in prison but right through the justice sector—is that we've got to be better than them. There is an expectation that when people do end up in prison it doesn't matter how badly treated they are. Actually I disagree with that. I actually think they need to know that society—the society we expect them to come back to the society that eventually they're going to end up back in—is actually a better place than the one they left to go to prison from.When I look at some of the provisions of this particularly the way we treat those with mental health issues I think it's incredibly important that we understand that these people are coming back. We are not going to go the way that Louisiana did where the greatest growth industry is geriatric prisons because they have such prescriptive sentencing that people who are no longer a threat to anyone—not even themselves—can never be released even though they are often in dementia wards and the growth of dementia prisons simply because that regime has gone down that path. We have to accept in New Zealand that we're not going to go that way—that the people are generally although there has been some good work in identifying the people that shouldn't ever get back. But most are going to come back into our society so we've actually got to give them some tools to come back with. That's why I look at some of the provisions of this bill and—just a little one like the tattoos.It was always a matter of pride to have your boob dots—to be able to walk into any hotel and anyone could identify immediately which prison you'd been to by not only how many dots you had that generally was commensurate with how many times you'd been to prison but even just the shape of the dot the shape of the star and where it was. And it was actually like reading DNA—to actually be able to read someone's whole life in prison. It's hardly surprising that when you're in prison you are locked away from society and the mere fact that you're eventually going to have to walk in public with some unfortunate pieces of tattoo art on your face—it's a long way away. So everything we do with people in prison it's got to be giving them the ability that when eventually we do release them they've got at least some chance of having a go having success—and tattooing is one of them. I'm pleased to see—I've been involved in the past myself in having people remove them. One of the first things when people do start to go straight—get on the straight and narrow—is often removing tattoos because nothing identifies them worse than that. In the past I've actually had to help people who have rehabilitated in getting their tattoos taken off and the State has actually been quite good at that.So actually in prison taking some steps to try and prevent the tattooing—it won't be easy. Anyone I've talked to anyone who's been involved in the corrections system will tell you it won't be easy but at least having a goal and some methodology and more importantly some sanctions around trying to prevent that from happening—again helping that when these people do go out the chances of them reoffending will be reduced. Because that again is the only way we're going to manage to do so.Because at the moment one of the other unfortunate parts of this legislation is that we're going to enable—it's around enabling police cells to be used for overflow prisoners. And I do remember walking into the Waitakere Henderson police station on one occasion when it was full of—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired.