Strategic direction

By 2017, we will reduce re-offending by 25 percent, and New Zealand will be a safer place. This will mean 600 fewer prisoners re-imprisoned one year after release, and 4,000 fewer offenders being reconvicted within a year of beginning their community-based sentence. This will translate to 18,500 fewer victims of crime. Corrections will be a world leader, using innovative approaches that effectively reduce re-offending.

Over the next three years we will build on the achievements we have already made towards reaching this goal. Staff safety is a priority and we will ensure our staff are safer, more engaged, and better equipped to provide motivation and encouragement, and create lasting change in offenders’ lives. We will introduce more consistency into the work we do to keep the public safe. Our prisons will be more secure, and our escape levels and contraband will remain extremely low.

Helping offenders to help themselves

More offenders will leave the corrections system having overcome their drug and alcohol problems, and having addressed their offending behaviours. They will have improved literacy and numeracy skills, and will have attained better education levels.

More offenders will have been supported towards work readiness, and will have found work on release. While in prison, offenders will be supported to make a difference for themselves, taking ownership of organising their time, and becoming responsible for day-to-day tasks. This means they will leave our prisons better equipped to manage their own lives, and more aware of the consequences of their actions and inactions.

Offenders completing community-based sentences will be supported to lead lawabiding lives, and will have more opportunities to address their offending behaviour. Probation officers will provide interventions to build motivation and life-skills, and support will be available for offenders who feel their lives are taking a wrong turn.

Young offenders will receive focused support to address their offending behaviours, and will benefit from greater access to work and learning opportunities.

Working with others to create lasting change

We will work side-by-side with iwi and Maori communities to rehabilitate and reintegrate Maori offenders. Interventions targeted at Maori offenders will provide a Tikanga Maori reintegrative environment, and show increased success levels.

We will bring together our non-Government and community partners, and set mutual goals, learn from each others’ strengths, share capability, and deliver results. Working more closely than ever before with our justice sector partners will be crucial in enabling us to make a real difference in offenders’ lives. We will continue to develop opportunities for sustainable employment for offenders through our work with the Ministry of Social Development, and through our partnerships with employers and industries.