Act readying policy to help prisoners

The Act Party will “turn over a new leaf” and launch policy to support prisoners after leader David Seymour witnessed the work being done by the Howard League for Penal Reform.

Seymour told the Herald a new policy would be revealed at the party’s annual conference on Saturday.

“We have done tough on crime and continue to promote those policies . . . but we are also going to turn over a new leaf and start talking about being smart on crime.”

A keynote speaker at the Act conference in Auckland’s Orakei is former Labour Party president Mike Williams.

Williams is now the chief executive of the New Zealand Howard League for Penal Reform, which runs literacy programmes that aim to get prisoners to a competent reading level, giving them a better chance of finding work when they are released.

Almost 65 per cent of the men and women in prison fall below NCEA level one literacy and numeracy.

“What they [the league] are doing is very Act,” Seymour said.

“They have had an extraordinary impact on people who have never had a piece of paper with their name and face on it before, have never been able to open a bank account.”