The Government is fulfilling two of its pre-election campaign promises to get tough on crime, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced.
Details of changes to fulfil National and ACT pre-election pledges were announced today.
They include stopping taxpayer funding for Section 27 pre-sentencing background reports and scrapping the previous government's prison reduction target - something Labour also pledged to get rid of.
Currently pre-sentencing, lawyers can apply for legal aid to produce a report, under Section 27 of the Sentencing Act, that would consider how an offender's personal, family or cultural background may have contributed to their offending.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said today: "As part of National and ACT’s coalition agreement, the Government will introduce a bill during the next parliamentary session to amend the Legal Services Act 2011 to exclude Section 27 from the legal aid scheme."
Sentencing reports to judges are to be cut back and prison reduction targets are gone. (Source: 1News)
He said: “In recent years, the development of Section 27 reports has turned into a cottage industry costing taxpayers millions and doing nothing for the victims of crime.
"$40,000 was spent on Section 27 reports in 2017. In the last financial year, this had increased to more than $7 million. If National hadn’t raised this issue costs would have kept on growing. These reports have also led to further discounts at sentencing.
"The Government has wider concerns around massive reductions to sentences and will be introducing legislation to cap discounts at 40%."
During the campaign, National promised to strip government funding from the reports, while ACT wanted to go further and remove Section 27 from the Sentencing Act altogether.
Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell also confirmed the Government has scrapped the previous Labour government’s target of reducing the prison population by 30%.
Labour itself had ditched the target during the election campaign last year.
"All New Zealanders would like to see fewer people in prison, but only if there is a drop in serious offending," he said.
"Sadly, under the previous Labour government’s soft-on-crime policies, we have seen a 33% increase in violent crime. This Government is determined to put public safety back at the heart of the criminal justice system."
Axing of funding increases re-offending, Greens claim
The Greens have issued a media release criticising the Government's change.
The party's new courts spokesperson, Tamatha Paul, said: "For decades, governments have created a justice system that ignores drivers of crime and instead puts people in prisons with inadequate rehabilitation support.
"The whole point of being able to request a background report is so a judge can better understand some of the reasons that may have led to an offence happening.
"They can cover things like substance abuse, personality disorders, neurodivergence, learning difficulties, brain injuries, poverty, and trauma — including family violence and sexual violence."
She added: "What National won't tell you is that without the sort of information included in a cultural report, the risk of future offending is likely to be higher than it would be otherwise. In other words, their 'tough on crime' rhetoric once again serves no one other than the people in power."
'Scales of justice shifting back' towards victims, ACT says
ACT has welcomed the move, which was part of their coalition agreement with National.
The party's justice spokesperson, Todd Stephenson, said: "Finally, the scales of justice are shifting away from rights for criminals and back toward rights for victims.
"Last year ACT revealed taxpayers forked out $7.56 million to produce cultural reports for criminals in just 12 months — a 27% increase on the year prior."
He added: "ACT has pushed to scrap Section 27 reports entirely. The reports elevate the excuses of the criminal when we should be centring the impacts on the victim.
"ACT's coalition agreement secured the defunding of Section 27 reports and exploring further reform of how these reports are used.
"We also secured the commitment to abolish Labour's prisoner reduction target and reform the Sentencing Act 2002 to give greater weight to the needs of victims and communities over offenders."
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