There is one proposition the criminal justice system in New Zealand is pretty much agreed upon: prisons are bad. For some they represent cruel and unusual punishment. For others they are bad because they socialise inmates into becoming career criminals. Still others reject prisons because they put the full responsibility for criminal acts upon the criminal and ignore the social causes of crime. They are society's way of deflecting blame upon itself on to others. Yet others regard prisons as dehumanizing institutions, akin to the evil of slavery. Others--more pragmatically inclined--point to the high recidivism rates which provide compelling evidence that prisons fail to deter criminals, on the one hand, and fail to rehabilitate, on the other. Yet others complain about the costs of building and running prisons.
Consequently, the criminal justice system in New Zealand represent not so much a "war on crime" but a "war on prisons". This is the argument David Fraser makes in his book, Badlands. NZ: A Land Fit For Criminals (Kaukapakapa, Auckland: Howling At The Moon Publishing, Ltd, 2011.) What is the evidence?
Here are some indicators. In 1999 a nationwide referendum was held that attracted over 85 percent support. It called for minimum sentencing and hard labour for criminals. The incoming Labour Government not only ignored the petition--it moved drastically in the other direction.
The freshly elected Labour-led Government subsequently made violent criminals eligible for parole after serving just a third of their sentence and ordered judges to impose "the least-restrictive sentence that is appropriate in the circumstances".These were radical moves against incarceration. Eligibility for parole after serving only one third of a sentence has had far reaching consequences, including those released going on to commit more crimes. And directions to the courts to impose the least restrictive sentence has institutionalised the anti-prison bias into the court system itself.
A second evidence is the introduction of a wide range of sentences as alternatives to prison.
If the court cannot avoid a conviction then legislation enables the courts to sentence the offender to a variety of community sentences. The argument which Correction officials and others have put forward that they are an effective way of reforming criminals, is based on pseudo-science. Similarly, their case that supervision programmes are necessary to meet offenders so-called 'needs', is entirely bogus . . . . I am of the firm opinion that their true single purpose was, and is, to prevent offenders going to jail. (Fraser, Badlands, op cit., p. 49.)A third evidence of an anti-prison prejudice amongst academics and Corrections bureaucrats and politicians is the misuse of fines. The concept of sentencing by the imposition of monetary fines is sound, provided the payment of the fine is used to restitute the victim (not fund the State). Non payment of fines should arguably result in an automatic prison sentence (with the fine probably being paid to the victim by the State--after all, why should the victim suffer further because the perpetrator fails to pay a fine?) But these days the State bends over backwards not to incarcerate those who fail to pay fines. The Courts can now reduce the penalty if the perpetrator is in financial hardship. If the criminal still refuses or fails to pay, other fallback alternative penalties can be resorted to, such as community detention and home detention.
Community based sentences are a joke. The sanctions for failing to show up are pretty much non-existent.
The 2002 legislation had made certain that up to twenty per cent of the so called work hours could be spent in training in basic work and living skills. In many cases, this means no more than group work discussions organised by the probation service, which the offenders will frequently fail to attend. There is also a clause in the Sentencing Act 2002 which allows for a work order to be cancelled if the offender "is unable to comply with the terms of the sentence." (Fraser, ibid., p. 50).
But it got worse.
. . . within only a few short years, community based sentences were being imposed on over 50 per cent of property offenders and as many as 45 per cent of violent offenders. Furthermore, by 2008, a Ministry of Justice report revealed that thousands of cases of violence resulted in work-related community sentences. (Ibid.)The Commentariat and the elites of our society are well out of step with the general public. There has been a slight backlash, resulting in a new Parole Act requiring a minimum of two thirds of a sentence be served before parole became a possibility. The hue and cry from the anti-prison cabal was deafening. According to their reckoning, Armageddon threatened. Then there has been the Three Strikes sentencing bill, which has passed into law. This will have more and more of an impact over time (provided it survives another left-wing government).
The increasing criminality of New Zealand society is not a product of the complexities of modern society. Nor is it due to the "poor getting poorer". The responsibility can be largely laid at the feet of the criminal justice system itself which has shown itself reflexively prejudiced against prisons.
We do not argue that prisons are the "be all and end all" of criminal justice. Far from it. But neglect them at our peril. We have. And crime has flourished. It is one of the most dynamic growth industries in the country.
New Zealand's Crime Victim Survey in 2006 revealed that there are almost 3 million crimes committed every year and of these only approximately 1% ever results in a jail sentence. In 2007 only 9% of all sentences passed in New Zealand were custodial. The rest consisted of community sentences of various kinds, monetary penalties, and discharges, leaving the criminals concerned free to carry on their life of crime. (Ibid., p. 36).
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