Govt and tribunal closer than report suggests

Call it good timing, but the day before the Waitangi Tribunal lashed Corrections over its failure to cut Maori reoffending the Government announced $10 million to help do just that.

The Government can also point to having part-fulfilled one of the tribunal’s recommendations to establish a Maori-specific target around reoffending.

A $503m package to boost police officer numbers announced in February — and after the tribunal hearings — included a target to reduce Maori reoffending by 25 per cent by 2025.

The tribunal wants regular public reporting on progress and a dedicated budget to resource the work contributing to it.

Corrections’ work on reducing Maori reoffending has not been insignificant, the tribunal report conceded. But a growing gap between Maori and non-Maori reoffending rates meant the situation needed more urgency.

If the Government follows its recommendations — and it only has the power to recommend — it will need a great deal more than $10m.

During the tribunal’s hearings last year Tom Hemopo, the retired probation officer who took the claim against Corrections, was confronted with a list of initiatives Corrections had taken to cut reoffending. Hemopo, who worked with prisoners for 25 years, had a simple response: show me how things have improved for Maori. They couldn’t because they hadn’t. The tribunal has found against the Government saying the “grossly disproportionate, decades-long and increasing” Maori overrepresentation in jail has become normalised.

Prime Minister Bill English’s response to the tribunal was to take the race issue out of it by saying the overall prison population was too high. But tougher bail laws and stricter sentencing introduced under National have helped push the prison muster past 10,000.

English’s visits to prisons to see the work being done by groups like the Howard League for Penal Reform suggests he isn’t prepared to simply forget about people once they’re inside.

And the fact the “three strikes” Act Party launched a policy this year to give prisoners time off sentences in exchange for learning to read and write shows extra spending on prisoner rehabilitation won’t face much political opposition.

The Government and the tribunal agree on more about the need to cut Maori re-offending than the report or the response might suggest.