Mark Mitchell Wants Short Prison Sentences Scrapped In Hope Of Reducing Reoffending

Monday, 5 May 2025, 4:06 pm
Article: RNZ

Lillian Hanly, Political reporter

The Corrections Minister is looking at scrapping short prison sentences in favour of longer ones, in the hope of reducing reoffending.

Mark Mitchell said people with longer sentences have more access to rehabilitation and therefore more successfully re-enter society.

The idea is only being looked into, but it's Mitchell's preference if it led to fewer victims overall - even if it required building more prisons due to an increase in the prison population.

"When violent offenders receive short sentences or are released without proper rehabilitation, it puts the public at risk. I have asked Corrections to look into how short sentences relate to re-offending with a view of gaining a better understanding," Mitchell told RNZ.

"We want to see offenders turn their lives around and become meaningful, contributing members of society.

"With that comes tough decisions to ensure serious crime leads to serious consequences, alongside investing in programmes that break the cycle of reoffending," Mitchell said.

The Opposition is scoffing at the idea though, with the Greens and Labour both saying it goes against the evidence and would come at a significant cost.

Labour's Justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said it was "depressing" the government couldn't come up with better solutions.

"It's the usual rhetoric about putting people in prison for long periods of time.

"We know that whilst imprisonment is necessary in some cases, in terms of reducing crime in the long term, putting everyone in prison simply doesn't work."

Webb said rehabilitation was "absolutely" important, but said the lowest reoffending rates came from those who were sentenced to community sentences where they could access drug and alcohol programmes and rehabilitation programmes in the community.

"The correction system at the moment doesn't have the resources to deliver them. The community is the best place for that."

He said they had to address offending and risks of offending at the "earliest possible stage," and by the time people were put in prison "you've missed the boat."

"Prisons are a waste of money... they are unbelievably expensive to build and unbelievably expensive to manage," Webb said.

"We should be putting money into where we can avoid crime, which is into education, into health, into addiction and into mental health and building more prisons is building a big concrete ambulance."

Mitchell, however, pushed back on the previous government's approach to corrections.

"For too long, the balance in our justice system has shifted away from accountability, and this government is taking action that puts victims first, ahead of offenders."

"My top priority as Corrections Minister is keeping Corrections staff and New Zealanders safe," he said.

The Greens justice spokesperson Tamatha Paul told RNZ longer and harsher prison sentences do not lead to better outcomes.

She said it was "extremely expensive and costly", not just financially, but the "human potential that it will waste, and the families that will be torn them apart for longer as a result of this policy."

Paul pointed to criminologists who considered the issue, and what happened in prisons, and said it was "pretty clear" that "sentencing is not a silver bullet."

"The thing that this government loves to do is they like to create this assumption that every single person that is in prison has done a violent, heinous, serious crime.

"That is simply not the case."

She said the idea of making people stay in prison for longer because of "public safety" didn't match up with who was actually in prison, given shorter sentences were due to more minor crimes like burglary or theft.

Paul said the government seemed to think they could "continue to just build prisons and prisons and prisons and keep filling them up" and that was good policy.

"The best policy decision would be actually reducing the drivers of crime, things like poverty, homelessness, mental health and addiction issues, the presence of drugs in our communities, those are the kinds of things that actually help to reduce crime."

She said researchers, criminologists, lawyers and judges had said this over the years, but "we have a government that is completely agnostic towards that advice."

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