Slash jail numbers - Morgan

Gareth Morgan’s Opportunities party wants to almost halve the number of people in prison by 2027.

His policy includes scrapping the ‘‘three strikes’’ law, extending eligibility for the Youth Court to offenders under 20, and increasing funding for restorative justice.

The policy aims to get New Zealand to fewer than 6000 prisoners by 2027. This comes out to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) average of 114 prisoners per 100,000 people, far below New Zealand’s current rate of 210 prisoners per 100,000.

The Youth Court would still be able to transfer young people to the district court if that seemed more appropriate.

The Youth Justice programme is reserved for offenders under 17 but is already being raised to include under 18-year-olds by 2019.

It focuses more on rehabilitation than punishment and has no ‘‘guilty’’ or ‘‘not guilty’’ pleas.

Morgan’s policy launch comes a day after National announced a new army boot camp for youth offenders, a move he slammed as an appeal to ‘‘redneck voters’’.

‘‘Every piece of credible research in this field tells us that further traumatising young people in an attempt to break their spirit, and bully them into less anti-social behaviour, achieves exactly the opposite outcome,’’ Morgan said.

‘‘A military style re-education programme staffed by those with little knowledge of how to reach and repair damaged young people has zero chance of success.’’

Prime Minister Bill English defended the policy yesterday.

‘‘These are murderers, rapists, aggravated robbers. They’re serious kids, the most serious offenders you can get and if we don’t change what we do they just go to prison,’’ English said.

He rejected any evidence against the scheme, saying a military-style bootcamp had not been tried in New Zealand yet.

The Opportunities Party (TOP) new policy would also give prisoners back the right to vote, increase addiction services, and strengthen the Clean Slate Act.

‘‘The situation we are in now isn’t a result of having the world’s worst offenders,’’ Morgan said.

‘‘It has come about because

''New Zealand has some of the world's worst and most outdated criminal justice policies.'' Gareth Morgan

New Zealand has some of the world’s worst and most outdated criminal justice policies.

‘‘There’s no good reason why New Zealand should continue to enjoy the dubious distinction of caging more people per head of population than any other Western industrialised nation this side of the [United] States.’’

David Collinge, who runs the not-for-profit meth rehab group Pipe Down, said he did not usually applaud political parties, but TOP’S policy had won him over.

When visiting Rimutaka Prison last week he had talked to 10 prisoners, 8 of whom were in for drug-related offences.

‘‘They were busted as dealers but they weren’t really, they were pretty much just moving small quantities around within their circle, scraping a bit off the top,’’ Collinge said.

He said a shift towards homebased or rehabilitative sentencing for drug offences would be a huge shift – particularly as prisons themselves were rife with drugs.

TOP were at 3 per cent in last week’s UMR poll, far ahead any other minor party, but will need 5 per cent for a place in Parliament.

The other minor parties – ACT, Unitedfuture, and the Maori Party – all have a competitive shot at an electorate seat.