Should we tell residents ex-con in their area?

A corrections ‘‘policy’’ meant a woman murdered in her own home by a neighbour was never notified he was on parole for rape. Joseph James Brider, 35, was out of jail for just 10 weeks before killing Juliana Cayena Bonilla Herrera. Do we need a law requiring communities to be told of violent offenders being sent to live among them? An MP from each side of the House gives their views.

Like many in Aotearoa, I was deeply saddened to read about Juliana Cayena Bonilla Herrera earlier this year. Everyone in New Zealand should be safe in their community and in their own home.

The Department of Corrections has confirmed it will review its community notification policy to make sure it continues to support public safety. As this is an internal policy, this is an appropriate first step.

It is my understanding that Corrections’ policy largely focuses on the community notification of child sex offenders and people on extended supervision orders, but it does provide for the notification of other serious offenders.

The current policy also allows for a range of factors to be considered in each case.

This includes the terms of the person’s release, their history of offending and possible risk to the community.

Another consideration is that successful rehabilitation and reintegration, when appropriate, can protect against future harm.

No doubt the scope and application of this policy will be thoroughly explored in Corrections’ review.

While Corrections has their review underway, our Government is continuing to take action to make sure that New Zealanders are safe.

This includes moving swiftly to introduce new laws when necessary, based on evidence. For example, we recently introduced a raft of legislative changes to give police additional tools to seize the illicit assets of organised crime.

This means that not only do we have more frontline police than ever before, they also have greater power to hit criminals where it hurts.

There’s no easy fix when it comes to tackling crime.

Putting in place tough consequences is just one of the ways that we’re making our communities safer. We’re also providing rehabilitation and opportunities for New Zealanders who need help getting back on the right track, including through our Better Pathways package which extends programmes that have a record of success driving down crime.

There’s still more work to do, but we are making good progress on our plan to keep New Zealand communities safe.

The story of Juliana Herrera is tragic and a situation that should never have happened. No matter where you choose to live, you can’t choose your neighbours.

Devastatingly, Ms Herrera was the victim of a brutal murder by a neighbour who had recently been released from prison and moved into the unit next to her without her knowing.

There is no easy answer on how to solve this problem. Most violent criminals are eventually let out after serving a prison sentence.

The Government has stated that it wants to reduce the prison population. That inevitably will lead to violent prisoners getting out sooner and or potentially receiving shorter sentences. These are violent people who harmed others, and they should face the full force of the law to account for their actions and to protect the public.

For violent criminals especially, we need to ensure that there are effective parole conditions in place that allow for a thorough assessment of the offenders for the sake of public safety.

As for providing a notification to surrounding residents that an ex-convict is living in their area, there is certainly merit in the idea.

We have similar notifications for child sex offenders, where neighbouring residents in the vicinity of a registered child offender are notified so that any children in the area can be kept out of harm’s way.

If we were to support and eventually adopt a new law that would see the same notification process for violent criminals, we would need to see evidence that it would prevent future offending.

We also need to get the balance right. For some criminals who have gone to prison and been rehabilitated, would it be fair to provide their conviction history to their neighbours?

It is important we strike the right balance between keeping people safe and respecting those who have served their sentence and turned their lives around.

Ultimately, if notifying surrounding residents gives them peace of mind and can save them from what happened to Ms Herrera, thenwe owe it to New Zealanders to consider changing the law to allow neighbours to be notified of a violent criminal living in their area.