10.1 Major management category

The offender inventory system enforces a one-day-one-status requirement on each offender so that each offender’s timeline is partitioned into discrete and non overlapping episodes of management. Major Management Categories are defined with a "trumping order" with the following order of precedence; sentenced prison > remand > supervision > community work, so that the more expensive or significant management category can be determined on any day. Further, the rule also allows examination of the balances and transitions from one category to another category in a way that assists in analysing Corrections’ business, and offenders’ careers.

One of the features of the resulting timeline data-set is that it provides for analysis of offender flows and balances such that opening balances always equal closing balances and that there is certainty that no offender status changes have been inconsistently treated. Should an offender status change be overlooked then the offender will soon become obvious as being inappropriately classified. One of the consequences is that the numbers do not necessarily provide all the detail covered in other reports.

The full table with rank order for "major management categories" can be found here . An overview of the descriptions used is given below. It should be noted that the definitions are necessarily loose to accommodate a span of history with changing terminology and legislation.

Glossary of major management category terms

Term used	Meaning an episode of management where:
Indeterminate	The offender is sentenced to a "life" or "preventive detention" custodial episode with no set release date; any release requires an order of the Parole Board.
Long term	The offender is sentenced to a custodial episode of fixed length, with the longest sentence chain (after taking into account cumulative and concurrent directives) being greater than two years. Currently the law requires these longer-term sentenced offenders to serve at least one third of the imposed term, though they can be held until the end of the imposed term, at the Parole Board’s discretion
Short term	The offender is sentenced to a custodial episode of fixed length, with the longest sentence chain (after taking into account cumulative and concurrent directives) being less than or equal to two years. Currently the law requires shorter-term sentenced prisoners to be released after serving exactly half of the imposed sentence length.
Other custody	Is a catch-all category designed to ensure that any anomalous data indicating a custodial sentence is not lost.
Remand	An individual may be remanded in custody by the court and held in police cells, court cells, psychiatric facilities or corrections facilities. The remand period is normally short and specific or until a specified Court day for trial or for sentencing. It is very common for remanded individuals to have multiple charges on each remand warrant, with new and successive remand warrants issued during the course of a single episode on remand. Remand warrant data is available for analysis only from mid-1998 onwards.
Home detention	Home detention is an electronically monitored and supervised restriction to live and stay at a specified address. Home detention is managed by the Community Probation Service. Up to the time of the close date for the current report, there were two conceptually different types of home detention. "Back-end home detention" was ordered by the Parole Board to manage an offender's return to the community after a long-term prison sentence. "Front end home detention" was ordered by the Parole Board as a means of serving a short term prison sentence, when the sentencing judge grants leave for an application to be made. From October 2007 judicially-ordered home detention sentences become a reality, replacing front end home detention.
Extended supervision	Offenders may be subject to an order, imposed by the court and with conditions set by the New Zealand Parole Board, by which they are managed by the Community Probation Service. The order can apply for up to 10 years following a finite term of imprisonment. High and long-term risks posed by some sex offenders in the community are the primary target of this order.
Parole	Prison-sentenced offenders may be ordered to be released to parole management by the New Zealand Parole Board. Parole requires that the offender meets regularly, and works closely with a Corrections probation officer, who ensures that special conditions imposed by the Board are fulfilled.
Post release conditions	Prison sentenced offenders may have post release conditions imposed by the judiciary at the time of sentencing. Such conditions are overseen by a probation officer.
Supervision	Offenders sentenced to supervision report regularly to a probation officer and, if ordered by the court, fulfil special conditions designed to address their risk of further offending. Supervision may include in-depth, focused interventions such as rehabilitative programmes, reintegration services, or counselling that addresses their offending.
Community work	Offenders sentenced to community work complete a prescribed number of hours of work within the community. Community Work sentences came into effect with the Sentencing Act 2002, and provide for a degree of reparation to the community.
Other Community	Refers to all community sentences other than supervision or community work. This covers all predecessors of community work including community service and periodic detention sentences.
Discretionary release-eligible	Refers to offenders who are prison sentenced at the time being considered, but for whom a Parole Board (New Zealand Parole Board or its predecessors) has discretionary power to order release from the imprisoned episode, but has not yet done so. At 2007-06-30 the New Zealand Parole Board had the following discretionary powers: to grant home detention to short-term prison sentenced offenders who had been granted (by the sentencing judge) eligibility to apply for home detention. to grant home detention to long-term prison sentenced offenders who are within three months of their parole eligibility date. to grant parole or home detention to long-term prison sentenced offenders who had served at least 1/3rd of their imposed term or any specified minimum term (whichever is the greater). to grant (lifetime) parole to life sentenced offenders who had served at least ten years or any specified minimum term (whichever is the greater). to grant parole to preventive detention sentenced offenders who had served at least five years or any judicially specified minimum term (whichever is the greater).
Never sanctioned	These individuals have never previously been managed by Corrections; they may however have convictions which were sanctioned with fines or other lower-level penalties, or they may have previously been held in custody remand but later released without conviction. Approximately 35% of new management episodes each year involve individuals who have no previous correctional history.
Offender pool	Has had at least one previous episode of management under Corrections within the last ten years. The majority of new starts under correctional management each year are individuals from the Offender Pool.
Aged out	Has had at least one previous episode of management under Corrections, but none within the last ten years. Only a small number of such individuals return to correctional management each year (less than 5% of all new starts), so most in this category can be considered to have desisted.