*** Welcome to piglix ***

New Zealand Department of Corrections

Department of Corrections
Ara Poutama Aotearoa
CorrectionsNZ-logo.svg
Department overview
Formed 1995
Jurisdiction New Zealand
Headquarters Level 9, Mayfair House,
44-52 The Terrace,
Wellington
WELLINGTON 6011
Employees 7,184 FTE staff
(30 June 2009)
Annual budget Vote Corrections
Total budget for 2016/17
Increase$1,620,130,000
Minister responsible
Department executive
  • Ray Smith,
    Chief Executive
Website www.corrections.govt.nz

The Department of Corrections (Corrections) (Māori: Ara Poutama Aotearoa) is the public service department of New Zealand charged with managing the New Zealand corrections system. Corrections' role and functions were defined and clarified with the passing of the Corrections Act 2004. In early 2006, Corrections officially adopted the Māori name Ara Poutama Aotearoa.

The Department of Corrections was formed in 1995, by the Department of Justice (Restructuring) Act 1995. Prior to this prisons, the probation system and the courts were all managed by the Department of Justice. The new Act gave management of prisoners, parolees and offenders on probation to a new Department of Corrections while leaving administration of the court system and fines collection with the Ministry of Justice. The intention was to enable the new Department to improve public safety and assist in the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders.

In 2000, an approach based on enhanced computerised access to information about offenders was tried. The new chief executive of the department, Mark Byers, introduced a $40 million scheme designed to reduce reoffending called Integrated Offender Management (IOM). At the time it was described as "the biggest single initiative the department has undertaken to reduce reoffending". Seven years later, Greg Newbold said the scheme was an expensive failure and described it as "another wreck on the scrapheap of abandoned fads of criminal rehabilitation."

The use of private prisons has also been tried. New Zealand's first privately run prison, the Auckland Central Remand Prison opened under contract to Australasian Correctional Management (ACM) in 2000. In 2004, the Labour Government, opposed to privatisation, amended the law to prohibit the extension of private prison contracts. A year later, the 5-year contract with ACM was not renewed. In 2010, the National Government again introduced private prisons and international conglomerate Serco was awarded the contract to run the Auckland Central Remand Prison. Serco has also been given the contract to build and manage a new 960 bed prison at Wiri. The contract with Serco provides stiff financial penalties if its rehabilitation programmes fail to reduce reoffending by 10% more than the Corrections Department programmes.

In 2012, the Government revealed it will spend $65 million over the next four years on reducing criminal reoffending. It will go towards additional alcohol and drug treatment, increased education, skills training and employment programmes for prisoners. Corrections Minister Anne Tolley and Associate Corrections Minister Dr Pita Sharples said the 'reprioritised' operational funding was aimed at reducing reoffending by 25 per cent by 2017.


...
Wikipedia

...