Justice
Safer Communities
United Future believes that strong local communities are the building blocks of a successful nation. For this reason we will work to ensure that New Zealand communities are safe and considerate places where one can confidently raise a family free from the threat of violence and property damage.
United Future's position is to:
- Ensure adequate police coverage of rural areas.
- Establish community safety plans with police, local bodies and communities, building local knowledge and community relationships, and ensure that all households can receive information about local policing issues.
- Increase staffing levels at Police Communications Centres to ensure that 111 calls are responded to promptly and effectively, and consider returning them to control at the regional level to utilise local knowledge.
- Re-introduce 'beat' cops for every neighbourhood, to raise the visibility of police and their interaction with the community they serve, as well as boosting intelligence-gathering capabilities.
- Introduce a campaign to report all offences to emphasise that 'No Crime is Too Small', and resource the police to respond rapidly to these incidents and target 'hotspots' of crime.
- Promote co-operation between community groups, such as Neighbourhood Support, Community Patrol groups, neighbourhood beat police and local councils. Encourage these groups to share information, develop community safety initiatives in line with the 'No Crime Is Too Small Strategy' and to also function as Emergency Readiness teams; providing a street level infrastructure for civil defence assistance.
- Ensure that police target and monitor the persistent criminals in our communities, particularly gangs.
- Review the effectiveness of traffic police, with a view to whether they should comprise a separate division.
- Increase staffing levels at Police Communications Centres to ensure that 111 calls are responded to promptly and effectively, and consider returning them to control at the regional level to utilise local knowledge.
- Establish a dedicated non-emergency phone line to deal with petty crime, operated at the local level.
- Ensure that police co-ordinate closely with social service and child protection agencies in each community, including automatic referral of any criminal activity that involves children, to improve responses to domestic violence and child abuse.
- Establish community safety plans with police, local bodies and communities, building local knowledge and community relationships, and ensure that all households can receive information about local policing issues.
- Establish a transparent Police staffing formula that ensures a minimum presence in all areas, yet allows for extra police to be deployed where the crime rate exceeds the national average.
- Encourage volunteer and community agencies to take a role in promoting a crime free society.
- Increase funding for the Youth Aid section of the police.
- Increase the length and standard of Police training and mentoring programmes to ensure that new recruits are fully prepared.
Early Intervention
United Future strongly believes in the theory of having 'a fence at the top of the cliff rather than an ambulance at the bottom' when it comes to dealing with young offenders or at-risk youth. It is a fact that most violent and serious crime in New Zealand is committed by people that have previously been convicted of petty misdemeanours at a young age.
United Future's position is to:
- Encourage schools to implement a character education programme.
- Expand successful early intervention programmes such as Parents As First Teachers, Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters (HIPPY), Family Start, and Project Early.
- Promote free parenting programmes for all new parents, and ensure that families at-risk are also referred to them.
- Get tough on truancy by establishing a national, centralised database to track student enrolment and attendance.
- Enable education authorities to seek 'parenting orders' requiring the parents of chronic truants to attend parenting classes, as well as 'parenting contracts', whereby the parent and the school agree on steps they will take to improve the child's behaviour.
- Expand the Social Workers in Schools Programme
- Ensure that the 'No Crime is Too Small' policing strategy is backed up by rapid responses to restore the damage made by petty crime such as vandalism
- Use reparations, electronic monitoring and work on community projects (e.g. removing graffiti, house construction) as initial sentencing options for youth offenders, established through contracts drawn up between the police, the offender and their family, and backed up by harsher supervision for compliance failures.
- Increase community sentencing options for 'entry level' property crime such as tagging, vandalism, theft and graffiti, in keeping with our 'No Crime Is Too Small" policing strategy, to send the message that crimes against property are crimes against people.
- Support NGO mentoring programmes, such as the Buddy programme, whereby at-risk youth lacking responsible role models are in regular contact with others in the community who can have a positive influence on their behaviour, and the behaviour of their families.
- Increase funding for Plunket to increase home visits to double the current levels as a specific strategy to identify families at risk.
- Promote free family mediation services to offer support and guidance to family relationships in difficulty.
- Establish restorative justice styled disciplinary programmes in schools to combat bullying and other misbehaviour, requiring the student to understand the implications of his/her actions, involving the parents, and arriving at a punishment (e.g. community service) that is an alternative to suspension or expulsion.
- Increase the number of truancy officers, especially in areas with persistent high rates of truancy.
- Resource alternative education providers to work with at-risk youth who have dropped out of mainstream schooling.
- Ensure that schools implement anti-bullying strategies, safe classroom programmes and tough anti-drug policies in consultation with the police and other agencies.
- Increase funding for appropriate early intervention supervision and diversionary programmes for youth at risk.
- Extend the age at which family group conferences may be employed for first offenders, and ensure that they all include re-integrative and rehabilitative elements, and that any reparations, apologies or punishment agreed to are enforced.
- Establish links with the business community to mentor and support a- risk young people.
- Foster co-operation and information sharing between police, courts, schools, community groups and social services when dealing with at-risk families and youth.
- Merge District Truancy Services and the Non-Enrolment Truancy Service, increase their funding, and require the new organisation to work more closely with schools, police, welfare agencies and non-governmental organisations (e.g. Maori Wardens) to ensure that they respond quickly to truancy before it develops into a bigger problem.
- Establish a research programme to ascertain which early intervention programmes work and are worthy of being rolled out nationwide.
- Increase funding for adult literacy programmes, and ensure that every community education centre runs such programmes.
- Increase resources for mental health professionals to ensure that those who may pose a risk to others or themselves are adequately assessed and treated.
- Amend the Privacy Act where family members are primary caregivers so they may be fully informed of the care and release of their unwell relative, with consequential rights of appeal in decisions that place the patient in community or home care;
Support for Victims
When it comes to dealing with crime in New Zealand often the plight of the victim is overlooked. United Future is committed to upholding the rights of victims and putting in place a system that ensures the victims of crime are compensated for the emotional, physical and financial harm they have suffered.
United Future's position is to:
- Fully support victim restoration programmes for non-violent crimes to ensure those offenders and their families compensate victims for their losses and face up to the people they have hurt.
- Ensure that offenders complete their commitments under restorative justice contracts, and ensure that victims are kept informed of progress if they wish to be.
- Ensure that Courts make the welfare and safety of victims, their families and the public paramount when considering bail applications.
- Recover reparation to victims through a restitution order at sentencing that would automatically deduct at least 10% of an offender's earnings.
- Ensure that the Parole Board consider the impact on victims and the community when considering the conditions placed on parolees (e.g. restrictions on where they will be located).
- Ensure that Parole Board decision-making processes are made available for scrutiny, and are subject to appeal by victims.
- Allow the Parole Board discretion to decide when offenders can re-appear for parole proceedings and allow them to defer hearings for up to five years.
- Ensure that victims are informed about an offender's criminal history before they participate in restorative justice programmes such as family group conferences.
- Ensure that the police and judges undergo training to understand victims' needs.
- Ensure that Victim Support is sufficiently funded to be an effective deliverer of services including representation and advocacy for all victims, as provided for under the Victims Rights Act 2002.
- Consider parole applications for non-violent offences through a restorative approach with direct involvement of the victim.
- Promote greater public understanding of the law surrounding self-defence so that people know what they can do to protect themselves, their families and their property.
Restorative Justice
It is a fact that the vast majority of inmates in New Zealand prisons are repeat offenders or are future repeat offenders. United Future is committed to working with NGO organisations to reduce the rate of recidivism in New Zealand. This does not mean that we are soft on crime, rather that we have identified a number of initiatives that if successfully implemented can have a significant effect on lowering the number of repeat offenders in our prisons, thus lowering the amount of crime that takes place within our communities.
United Future's position is to:
- Support the development of a multi-party accord on crime with the aim of shifting political debate to issues of fact and the reasons for New Zealand's high rate of recidivism. This to be undertaken in conjunction with organisations including The Salvation Army and the Prison Fellowship.
- Make drug and alcohol rehabilitation courses compulsory for inmates who have been identified with drug or alcohol addictions.
- Make literacy programs compulsory for those inmates who have been identified with literacy problems. This is an effort to more successfully integrate inmates back into society upon release.
- Increase minimum non-parole periods for violent offenders and those who commit serious sexual crimes.
- Introduce tougher minimum penalties for child abuse and neglect, child sexual offences and child pornography.
- Concurrent sentences are not to be a default position. Judges to use their discretion to recommend concurrent or non-concurrent sentences.
- Make suitable employment and accommodation integral components of the parole process. One of the major causes of recidivism is the lack of opportunities available to inmates once they leave prison. Financial stability, job prospects and adequate accommodation are prerequisites for 'a new start'.
- Multiple violent and sexual offenders will not be eligible for bail.
- Deny home detention for violent offenders, drug dealers, and child abusers.
- Introduce minimum sentences that more accurately reflect the nature of offending, the impact on victims, and the social denunciation of crime.
- Ensure that discretion exercised by judges in sentencing reflects the circumstance of the crime rather than the circumstances of the offender.
- Encourage the use of creative and individualised parole provisions (e.g. curfews, weekend detainment, community work) to assist in the rehabilitation of the offender.
- Ensure that there is less of a disparity between the sentence given and that which is actually served. This will most practically be done by reducing the length of the sentence but extending the non-parole period from one-third of the sentence to two-thirds. The effect of this will be greater public certainty over the length of time inmates will spend in prison.
- Make treatment programmes compulsory for all sex-offenders.
- Ensure that parole conditions for sex offenders include monitoring, curfews, residential assessments and ongoing treatment.
- Leave the order imposed by the Youth Court for offenders to attend community-based rehabilitation (e.g. child sex offender programmes) up to the judge's discretion. Formerly this was set at a maximum of six months.
Providing a Co-ordinated Response to Justice
While prison is undeniably the public face of corrections, United Future is committed to providing a co-ordinated response to justice that takes into account the needs of both offender and victim and the safety of the general public. Smooth running of our court, prison and probation systems is crucial if we are to successfully manage the implementation of justice in New Zealand.
United Future's position is to:
- Allow treatment options to be incorporated into sentencing, combined with the use of further sanctions for continued abuse of drugs and other re-offending.
- Actively promote non-judicial case resolution (mediation or arbitration) for civil cases, making it a compulsory first step prior to court action.
- Develop the concept of community courts for low-level criminal cases, as advanced by the Law Commission, to put the victim back in control of the process, and seek to bring about mediated resolutions between offender and victim while ensuring that the need for societal condemnation of actions (the punitive element) is factored in.
- Tender prison management to both state and private providers, and ensure that prison construction costs are minimised.
- Establish an independent authority to monitor prisons and act as the forum for complaints from inmates to ensure that non-legal avenues for their resolution are exhausted before court action.
- Ensure that prison inmates undertake employment while inside at 'normal' pay rates with deductions for tax, cost of board and keep, restitution to victims, fines, and their own family.
- Ensure that prison inmates participate in educational programmes for literacy, numeracy, employment skills and character
- Ensure that prison inmates are provided with co-ordinated re-integration services upon release, including stricter supervision regimes, mandatory drug-testing and drug treatment options, mandatory community work, and access to suitable and stable accommodation, with accountability mechanisms for enforcement failures.
- Increase the resources available to ESR to ensure the speedy analysis of evidence.
- Ensure that offenders are brought before a court within no later than 48 hours of being charged.
- Ensure that courts are presented with all information relevant to the case, placing more onus on the police to fully disclose all matters, and requiring the accused to give his or her version of events, neither of which are required at present.
- Introduce stronger penalties for failure to disclose all relevant evidence in civil cases.
- Increase the jurisdiction of the Disputes Tribunal from $7,500 to $15,000 as of right and from $12,000 to $25,000 by agreement of the parties.
- Provide more training for Disputes Tribunal Referees, and increase their salaries and have them placed under the review of the Remuneration Authority.
- Provide for a limited right of rehearing of a District Tribunal case to the Principal District tribunal referee under certain circumstances.
- Monitor the television viewing of prison inmates to ensure that it is non-violent and educational.
- Enforce stricter disciplinary measures against recalcitrant prison inmates through the withdrawal of privileges, or removal to a harsher unit within the prison system.
- Ensure that there is sufficient capacity in our prisons due to changes in sentencing laws, by improving forecasting models.
- Ensure that the Community Probation Service is sufficiently staffed to enforce release conditions and enhance public safety.
- Ensure that there are sufficient secure places in Youth Justice facilities.
- Establish a taskforce to consider the management/treatment of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system.
- Improve co-operation between New Zealand and Australia to manage citizens that commit crime overseas, including notification at sentencing, legislative co-operation to ensure that parole and post-sentencing regimes may be enforced on repatriated nationals.
- Ensure that all residents without New Zealand citizenship who are found guilty of a violent offence are deported as soon as possible.