Providing a Co-ordinated Response to Justice

While prison is undeniably the public face of corrections, UnitedFuture 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.

It is UnitedFuture policy 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 Environmental and Scientific Research (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.
• Provide more training for Disputes Tribunal Referees, and increase their salaries and have them placed under the review of the Remuneration Authority.
• Monitor the television viewing of prison inmates to ensure that it is non-violent and educational.
• 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.
• Support the ‘Friends of the Court’ system for Environment Court hearings. The ‘Friends of the Court’ provides independent and objective advice to assist the court in making a decision. This makes it easier for community groups and NGOs, relieving them of the cost of court proceedings and having to employ expert consultants.