'THE NATION'

JUDITH COLLINS
Interviewed by SEAN PLUNKET

Sean Well critics say Deputy Prime Minister has lost the plot, now he's come out and said that he believes prisons are a fiscal and moral failure. Not only that but the ACT Party Corrections spokesperson agrees with him. But will his National caucus colleagues be as supportive. Let's find out. Corrections Minister Judith Collins is with me in the studio.

Well we've seen some of the reactions to Bill English's comments and the question was clearly asked, where do you stand on this and what he said?

Judith Collins – Corrections Minister
I've been very plain since 2009 when I launched the rehabilitation strategy that we have in Corrections. I've said we cannot continue to keep locking up people at the rate that we have over the last decade, and that we have to put a lot more emphasis on rehabilitation which we have, we've doubled the amount for rehabilitation, particularly drug and alcohol treatment for prisoners, in just the last three years.

Sean So no new prisons is now National Party policy?

Judith Well we don’t see that we need to have to build new prisons after the Wiri project, and that’s basically because the crime statistics are starting to track down, the message is clearly getting through that crime shouldn’t pay in this country, and it's not paying.

Sean I asked Greg O'Connor of the Police Association after those last crime stats were up, and they did show a drop, I said how do you explain that at a time of economic hardship when normally crime goes up, and he said look how full the prisons are, we've got all the criminals off the streets.

Judith Well he's right in a way in that the worst offenders, recidivists are locked up, and they're locked up very securely, and Corrections does an excellent job at that, it really does keep the public safe. However, we need to do more in terms of drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Just last year I opened at Paremoremo a drug and alcohol treatment unit at the prison. That’s the first drug and alcohol treatment unit in the entire northern region of New Zealand for Corrections. Now that’s shocking that that wasn't done before.

Sean That doesn’t come cheap though does it?

Judith No it doesn’t come cheap and that’s why every bit of rehabilitation must work, and what we're seeing is that the drug and alcohol treatment units are bringing about a 30% reduction in recidivism rates, and that’s actually very fiscally sound, but also it means that there are far fewer victims that can expect to suffer the consequences of really violent behaviour.

Sean The Law Commission's also suggested the essential decriminalisation of some offences, particularly the cannabis offences and making health agencies rather than justice agencies if you like the lead caregivers, or corrective agencies, as far as those crimes are concerned.

Judith Well it's difficult for the Corrections Department to be able to deal with that, because basically Corrections takes the people, they're sent to it by the courts and it does its best, and bear in mind that 45,000 people currently undertake community work with Corrections. So it's not that they're only prisoners that they deal with. However, we also know that cannabis is a major issue in terms of psychosis and a lot of prisoners have issues with psychosis, much of it brought along by abuse of alcohol and cannabis and other drugs like methamphetamine.

Sean So what I'm hearing from you is a change in emphasis, a greater emphasis, although you say you’ve been saying this for a while on rehabilitation and on stopping people – you know putting the fence at the top of the cliff rather than the ambulance or the prison cell at the bottom.

Judith Well Sean I think you're the first person in the media who's actually acknowledged that we've been saying this since 2009, since I launched the strategy on rehabilitation, and the fact that it may not suit some people to acknowledge that we have doubled the amount of rehabilitation available to prisoners in just three years, that’s an indictment on them. But we are seeing some very good results coming out of Corrections, and I think that that has also something to do with the lower end of the crime rate. Look at the end of the day these are adults, they make choices. You’ve seen the prisoners this morning talk about the fact that they know they made choices and bad choices sometimes, but we can certainly help them make better choices. But ultimately they are responsible for their offending, we can help them.

Sean Judith Collins you might lose some political support through this and we look at groups like Garth McVicars, and it has been fashionable on the right of the political spectrum to be tough on law and order, and tough on criminals and three strikes and you're out, lock em up, throw away the key. Do you think it is time to move past that sort of rhetoric and looking for solutions?

Judith Well I spend a lot of time on going into prisons, talking to staff and hearing about what works, and what I know is that there are some prisoners who we are not going to ever be able to help rehabilitate, because they are psychopaths, and there are many other prisoners who are in prison because they are recidivist burglars, and they are burglaring so that they can support a drug habit. We can certainly help them, but they have to want to be helped too Sean, that’s one of the big issues.

Sean Are you going to lose some votes out of this?

Judith I don’t think so. I actually think that fewer victims is what we're all after. I want there to be fewer victims and that’s what we're seeing starting to happen. That should mean that there are fewer people who end up in prison because they're committing fewer crimes.

Sean So what do you say to the Garth McVicars who say by going soft you are undoing a lot of the good work that you’ve done?

Judith Well look three strikes is hardly soft. Six hundred extra front line Police Officers in the beat is hardly soft. There is nothing soft about this, this is about sensible progress along trying to have fewer victims. You know double bunking brought in 900 new beds. We needed those, that’s hardly soft. We're not soft on crime, we're very very firm about it, but we also understand that there are some people who are currently prisoners who we could help better if we had more …

Sean You are on board with the idea of no new prisons in New Zealand, once Wiri's up and running? Would you like to start closing them? If so, when?

Judith I would really like to start closing some prisons like the Mt Crawford one in Wellington. That is an absolute disgrace. The Correction staff do their very best in a very difficult Dickensian situation. The old Mt Eden that was a disgrace. There are wings of some of our prisons that have been well past their use by date. Actually physical environment does matter, particularly for our staff and to try and help them have a better work environment.

Sean Okay so can you give us an even ballpark timeframe for when we're gonna start closing prisons, when the muster will really start dropping?

Judith Well the muster is starting to stabilise and starting to show some good signs, however ultimately it's up to criminals. If they want to stop committing crimes, the serious violent offences like as 62% of our prison inmates currently are, that’s what they're in for, then we'll be able to start closing more. So it is very dependent on the crime statistics.

Sean So right now you agree with Bill English when he says prisons have been a moral and fiscal failure and you want to turn that around.

Judith The moral failure is on the part of the criminals, and Bill absolutely agrees with that. The fiscal failure is that the rest of us taxpayers have to pay for looking after prisoners who should never have committed the crimes in the first place. But I'm making no apologies for the fact that we need to keep some people locked up for a very long time, for the public safety.

Sean Even if Garth McVicar would now say you're still talking tough, but you're acting soft?

Judith Not at all, what we're doing is bringing down the crime rate. I mean that is actually extremely important. That’s what we want. Fewer victims is a good outcome for everybody.

Sean Minister I thank you very much indeed for your time this morning. Corrections Minister Judith Collins.

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