Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister of Corrections): I do want to agree with the member who spoke before me Kelvin Davis on one matter and it is that unfortunately the people who come into the corrections system come with some challenges. One of them is mental health challenges—61 percent of offenders who come into the prison system have had a mental health issue in the 12 months that have preceded. That is why we are looking at cross-sector work with the Ministry of Health to focus very clearly on mental health so that we are in a position to reduce the number coming into the justice sector but then there is also a significant amount of work that Corrections is doing to support those who are there.The point that I do very deliberately want to disagree with the previous member on is the comment—it is twofold actually. One is the fact that when people are incarcerated they are not in our communities and therefore those who are committing violent and sexual crimes are behind bars. That makes our communities safer. It is quite simple.In terms of the rising number of those who are in prison there are a couple of key factors. One is that our police system is far more successful at getting successful convictions. Of those who are convicted the sentences—and they are not sentences that Corrections imposes. They are sentences imposed by the courts and by the judges. They are imposing longer sentences in recognition that some of those crimes are significantly more violent and a large number of them are also sexual violence. So they are being incarcerated for longer periods of time.The third part of it is also around the ability for them to get early releases. Again those are decisions that are made by the Parole Board based on the level of risk that an offender may pose to our community. If the Parole Board determines that that person is unsafe to be in the community that is the decision it makes. That is the decision it makes.So the point the member before me made was that our communities are not safer because we have more people in prison. Well I am sorry but you do not actually know your facts because if someone is behind bars they cannot commit a crime in our communities. So then for those who are in the communities absolutely there is a responsibility to enable them to be in a better position when they come out. In terms of reoffending it is a 4.4 percent reduction that our Government has achieved. There are 38000 fewer victims. That is success—38000 fewer victims. Have we got more to do? Absolutely but 38000 fewer victims is I think a success for the work that this Government has done.I want to take a moment because I want to acknowledge the incredible work that corrections staff do. They do work with some of the most challenged and challenging New Zealanders and absolutely they have caused 38000 fewer victims with the concentrated work that they have done with offenders.I want to go through some of those areas because again one of the challenges with the offenders whom we have in prison is that they have a very low level of literacy and numeracy. Sixty percent do not have an NCEA level 1—equivalent education. So I want to acknowledge the work of our hard-working volunteers in the corrections organisations—organisations like the Howard League which really supports prisoners in basic literacy and numeracy programmes—but then what we do from there is taking them to participate in trade training. There is a really great collaboration between tertiary education providers and also we are seeing more and more employers embracing the opportunity to not only employ offenders when they come out of prison but actually employ them while they are behind the wire. That is made possible by our work-to-release programmes because our Government absolutely believes that while we have people inside the care of the corrections system we want to enable them to have different choices different pathways when they come out.So whether it is education whether it is mental health whether it is skills for work or whether it is work experience—these are all critically important things that the Corrections team and the wider justice sector are focusing on to ensure that those people have a better opportunity. But you are kidding yourselves if you think it is not about keeping our public safe.