Message from the Chief Executive

I am proud to lead an innovative organisation that is strongly positioned to deliver on our goal of reducing re-offending. My vision is of a safer New Zealand that supports offenders to become productive, law-abiding members of society. Not only will offenders and their families have better lives, but our communities will be safer and there will be fewer victims.

We have made significant progress towards our ambitious target of reducing re- offending by 25 percent. We have done this by focusing on preparing offenders for employment, expanding our rehabilitation programmes and generally supporting offenders to do all they can to turn their lives around.

It wasn’t always this way. We have moved from an organisation focused primarily on containment to one committed to delivering real change in offenders’ lives. I am proud of how far we have evolved, and excited about how much further we can go.

But no matter what else we achieve, the public rightly judges us on our ability to keep people safe and we never lose sight of this. Over the past three years, we have been transforming the way we manage offenders in an effort to protect victims from re-offending, prevent escapes from prison and minimise risks to frontline staff.

At the centre of this effort has been a significant prison modernisation programme, major investments in staff training and equipment, greater accountabilities at the regional and local level and the expanded use of new technologies, such as on-body cameras and GPS monitoring.

Looking to the future, there are real opportunities to innovate for better results.  At Corrections we are passionate about finding new ways to address some long-term challenges, including gang-related re-offending and preventing young people from escalating through our justice system.

We know that the end of an offender’s sentence is not the end of their story – we want offenders to move out of the justice system for good. Working with our justice and social sector colleagues, and alongside our private sector partners including at the new Auckland South Corrections Facility, I am confident we can make real and lasting progress.

 


Ray Smith