Police Minister Poto Williams has once again stated that the Iwi Community Panels are a success because the 'referrals resulted in a 22.5 percent reduction in harm caused by reoffending'; what she is failing to mention is that almost 75 percent of people who go through these panels go on to commit further crime, says Darroch Ball co-leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust.

“An almost 75 percent reoffending rate in any system is an abject failure and by attempting to hide behind some ‘bottom of the barrel’ statistic like ‘reoffending harm’ is disingenuous at best.”

“That’s three-quarters of all offenders that go through this system go straight back out onto the street and commit more crime.”

“What makes this worse is the revelation that now more and more serious offenders are being sent to these iwi panels for offending such as assaulting police officers and firearms offences.”

“The whole ‘alternative justice’ panel concept was based on very low-level offenders who could be dealt with without clogging up the court system. But this has morphed under this government to start including far more serious offences - all the while knowing that the reoffending rate form these panels is getting out of control.”

“This is what happens when ideology and rhetoric sound good on paper until it hits the real world. These panels aren’t working, and these offenders are laughing all the way out the door – to commit more crime.”

“If the panels were measured on reoffending rate as the normal court system is, they would be shut down as of yesterday.”

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