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• Review of the Interface between Mental Health and Alcohol and Other Drug Services and the Criminal Justice System Paper Five: Population Groups: Maori, Pacific Peoples, Women and Youth
• Prisoner Employment Strategy: Progress
• Funding Prisoner Access to Trade and Technical Training and Other Initiatives from Vote: Corrections 2006/07 Operating Surplus
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Paper 28: Prisoner Employment Strategy: Progress

Purpose

1. This paper provides a report back on the implementation of the Prisoner Employment Strategy, which seeks to increase the volume of prisoner employment and improve prisoner employability on release from prison.

Executive Summary

2. In May 2006, Cabinet considered the Prisoner Employment Strategy 2006-2009 [SDC Min (06) 8/4 refers] which seeks to improve both the volume and the quality of employment and education available to prisoners. The Strategy recognises that improving prisoner employability will have a positive impact on reducing recidivism. In July 2006, as part of the Effective Interventions project, Cabinet agreed to funding of $0.597 million in 2006/07, rising to $6.496 million in 2009/10 and out years to support the Prisoner Employment Strategy.

3. The Department has made progress in increasing the volume of employment available for prisoners in the following areas:

4. Effective communication which captures public support for the goals of the Strategy is critical to the Strategy's success. For example, a key issue in this area is employer and public acceptance of prisoners working outside the prison compound either in a supervised context or on Release to Work. The Department has developed communication plans which aim to inform the public and gain acceptance for these initiatives.

5. A key area for the Strategy is the provision of trade and technical courses to groups of prisoners within the prison compound. An issue has arisen around prisoner access to student component-funding when the Department facilitates enrolment in tertiary education. A decision on the appropriate mechanism for funding these courses in future years is being postponed until policy direction in the Tertiary Education sector is resolved. Cabinet is expecting to take decisions in March/April 2007 [POL Min (06) 24/3 refers]. In the interim, I am discussing options to continue funding prisoner enrolments in employment-related education for the remainder of the 2006/07 financial year with the Minister for Tertiary Education.

6. The Department will continue to work towards the targets set in the Prisoner Employment Strategy 2006-2009 and will report back to Cabinet on further progress in July 2007.

Background

7. The Prisoner Employment Strategy provides the framework through which the Department can increase both prisoner participation in (from 40% to 60%), and the quality of, employment and education available to prisoners. In May and June 2006, Cabinet considered and approved the Prisoner Employment Strategy [SDC Min (06) 8/4 refers] and the associated work plan [SDC Min (06) 11/5 refers] which outlined the Department's approach to reduce re-offending by:

8. Planning of specific growth activities for the 2007/08 year will commence in February 2007. The Department aims to have 50% of eligible sentenced prisoners in employment related activities in 2007/08, and 60% in employment related activities in 2008/09.

9. As part of the Effective Interventions package, Cabinet agreed to the funding of $0.597 million in 2006/07, $4.452 million in 2007/08, $5.933 million in 2008/09, and $6.496 in 2009/10 and out years to increase participation in employment to 60% [Cab Min (06) 27/3 A refers]. This funding will primarily enable the establishment of additional employment instructor positions in prisons and assist with improving the facilities available for the delivery of employment and training.

10. Cabinet noted that the Department advised that it would report back to Cabinet by 30 November 2006 on progress with the Strategy, including the development of performance measures to assess progress.

Progress to Date

11. The Department provides opportunities for prisoners to work in a number of different industries, including farming, forestry, horticulture, manufacturing, and construction. Prisoners can also work in prison kitchens and laundry, cleaning, and prison asset maintenance.

12. These industries provide prisoners with the opportunity to earn qualifications through relevant Industry Training Organisations that will increase the likelihood that they will obtain employment on release. A number of prisoners also have the opportunity to participate in Release to Work, which enables them to work outside prison on day release.

13. In the seven months since Cabinet approved the Prisoner Employment Strategy, the Department has made significant progress towards its employment targets. Details of the work being done to progress the Prisoner Employment Strategy are below.

Industry Partnerships

14. The Department has a variety of relationships with local industry and companies that range from labour only contracts to processing and marketing of fresh produce. Some examples include:

15. In addition to specific arrangements with local and national companies, the Department has a Business Development Manager who is focused on the development of broader industry relationships. The Department is a member of relevant Industry Associations (such as the New Zealand Pine Manufacturers Association and the Nursery Growers' Industry Association) and provides information material to these associations for their publications.

16. The Department also holds open days to encourage industry visits to prison workplaces to enable local industry to:

17. Recent open days have been held at Auckland and Christchurch prisons and both were well attended events.

Response to Regional Needs

18. The Department identifies and allows for local need by:

Expanded Corrections-Managed Industries

19. The Department has undertaken a prison by prison planning exercise to identify all possible opportunities for increasing the numbers of prisoners in employment activity for the current financial year 2006/07. Prior to this exercise, an average of 1432 prisoners were employed in Corrections Inmate Employment industries at any one time. To date, 389 additional places have been identified. Recruitment for new instructors to manage these new positions is underway.

20. The following diagram shows how prison employment will increase for the first year of the Prisoner Employment Strategy, with the listed positions in each of the prisons scheduled to be in place by the end of the 2006/07 financial year. These new positions represent a 27% increase in the number of prisoners in employment.

21. The Department's focus is on both increasing the number of prisoners participating in employment and the total number of hours worked. Some of the additional 389 places will be achieved by splitting shifts (having different prisoners working in the morning and the afternoon). This will not increase the overall employment hours delivered by the Department but will increase the numbers of prisoners working. This will be implemented progressively over the next nine months.

22. At the same time, the Department is continuing to explore the creation of new industries and activities to generate further growth in 2007/08. Examples of activities underway include:

Prison Maintenance Work

23. Employment of prisoners for asset maintenance work such as painting has increased over the past few months and more prisoners have also been employed in prison kitchens.

24. The opening of the Spring Hill Corrections Facility and the Otago Corrections Facility will introduce 40 positions for prison maintenance activities. The opening of the Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility has created a further 20 prison maintenance positions.

Work Gangs

25. Several new prison work gangs have been established at Rimutaka and Rolleston Prisons involving around 40 prisoners. These prisoners are now involved in gorse control and grounds maintenance work.

26. The Department is always looking for opportunities to engage with employers, particularly in seasonal industries and community organisations, to provide prisoners with work experience in work gangs and similar employment situations outside the prison compound. This can include providing community work for Marae, churches, and other community organisations that do not have access to, or funding for, labour to undertake necessary maintenance.

27. The current shortages in seasonal labour have created significant opportunities for the Department to alleviate labour market shortages with prisoner labour. The key issue in this area is employer and public acceptance of prisoners working outside the prison compound in a supervised context. The Department will manage this issue through proactive communications. The Department is also currently in discussion with the Department of Labour's Immigration Service on how prison labour can be considered when assessing labour shortages for immigration purposes.

Release to Work

28. The Department is working to significantly increase the numbers of prisoners participating in "Release to Work". Release to Work is the means through which prisoners nearing the end of their sentence may obtain and engage in employment in the community with a view to maintaining employment on their release. This helps to cement the prisoner in the community and therefore facilitate reintegration and reduced recidivism. The target set for the Department is to reach 80 prisoners on Release to Work by February 2007 and 160 by July 2007.

29. To achieve this increase, the Department has revised its policy framework to change its focus from risk avoidance, to risk mitigation. In making decisions about a prisoner's suitability for Release to Work, risk to the community is a paramount consideration, and the Department's approach will be to identify, and where necessary, manage any marginal risks posed. However, it is important to note that significantly increasing the volume of prisoners on release to work does pose risks of escape, importation of contraband, and offending on release.

30. Focus in this area in the last six months has resulted in a significant increase (of approximately 200%) to 81 prisoners on Release to Work in mid December 2006. In addition to these placements, prisoner applications are currently being processed and further job vacancies around the country are being negotiated. This increase in the number of prisoners on Release to Work has been without significant incident.

31. The decommissioning of Mt Eden Women's Prison with the opening and relocation of female prisoners to the Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility has created the opportunity to use the Mt Eden site temporarily as a Reintegration Unit for male prisoners. The location is ideal for the provision of employment in the community for prisoners who will be released into the Auckland region. This initiative will provide 40 beds that can be dedicated to prisoners on Release to Work. The Department plans to have the unit operational by the end of November 2006.

32. In addition, the Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility is situated in an industrial area, with a significant number of potential work places. The Department anticipates that 20 additional women prisoners can be sourced from the Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility to work in the local community under the Release to Work scheme.

33. Due to the potential media interest in the increase of prisoners on temporary release, the Department has prepared a Release to Work Communications Plan to manage any public and media interest and to promote the initiative to prisoners, industry, and potential employers.

Success Stories

34. The following success stories provide some examples of how placement on Release to Work has improved outcomes for prisoners.

Maintaining the Employment Base

35. In addition to implementing activities to generate growth, the Department must also pay continuous attention to maintaining the base level of prisoner employment.

36. This base level (between 1450 and 1500 in sustainable industries) is not static guaranteed places. Many of the activities are subject to market forces and, in the case of farms, to changing weather conditions, which impact on the level of employment that can be provided at any time.

37. At present, the Department is seeking further work for the Auckland pre-cast concrete yard, as its primary contract to provide materials for the new prisons is now complete. The replacement of such contracts and the sometimes inevitable time lag in the tender process means that growth achieved through new activities may not be apparent for some time.

38. The level of growth required in the Prisoner Employment Strategy brings with it the difficulties of safely managing a much larger employment operation. At the same time, the Department is working on ensuring the types of activities that are put in place to achieve this growth are closely related to forecast labour market requirements, and flexible enough to respond to ongoing changes in the employment environment.

Education: Trade and Technical Courses

39. The Department spends over $5 million annually providing prisoners with quality foundation education (including literacy, numeracy and secondary-level education). Prisoners also access tertiary courses of their own volition and the Department assists prisoners to gain Industry Training Organisation qualifications through on the job training.

40. In addition, a key strand of the Prisoner Employment Strategy is the facilitated delivery of employment-related training. To provide this, the Department anticipates working with tertiary providers to enrol groups of prisoners in trade and technical national certificates. These will be targeted to meet local and national skill shortages and provide prisoners with nationally recognised qualifications on completion.

41. An issue has arisen that affects the on-going provision of these courses. The 2007 funding information limits access to Student-Compent Funding when the Department facilitates prisoner enrolments in such courses. I am discussing options to resolve this issue for the remainder of the 2006/07 financial year with the Minister for Tertiary Education. A decision on the appropriate long-term funding of these courses will be made in the context of upcoming education sector policy decisions.

42. The Department and the Tertiary Education Commission, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, and Treasury, will provide a report-back to Cabinet in March 2007 on the long-term policy and funding approach for prisoner access to Department-facilitated, publicly available trade and technical national certificates.

Ministry of Social Development Collaboration

43. The Department is working with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to improve the focus and delivery of employment and employment-related training to better meet labour market need.

44. The combined work includes a proposal to introduce an employment-related case management model where engagement with prisoners will begin at the sentence planning stage and continue throughout a sentence until release. The expanded service aligns sentence planning, employment and employment related training, Release to Work, and pre-release activities throughout a prisoner's sentence. A joint budget bid is being considered as part of Budget 2007.

45. This model will enable employment-related case management to be provided at the front end of sentences, where a better and more comprehensive assessment of a prisoner's skills and training needs can be made. This would be used to facilitate the prisoner's progression into Department delivered employment and education.

46. The initial budget bid requests funding for the delivery of the expanded service in four major prisons. This would enable more evidence of the effectiveness of the programme to be gained before determining whether the expanded service should be provided in all prisons. The selection of prisons will ensure that Maori can be prioritised, and that a wide demographic of prisoners, including women, can participate.

47. If the budget bid is not successful, the Department and MSD will look at ways to collaborate to improve joint service delivery and ensure positive prisoner outcomes.

International Labour Organisation Convention on Forced Labour

48. New Zealand is a signatory to International Labour Organisation Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29). As part of New Zealand's regular reporting on measures which it is taking in respect of this Convention, particularly in relation to the employment of prisoners, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Labour are working to ensure that the Prisoner Employment Strategy meets all the requirements of the Forced Labour Convention. The results of this work will be reported back to Cabinet in July 2007 as part of the next scheduled report back on the Prisoner Employment Strategy. New Zealand is reporting to the International Labour Organisation on its compliance with Convention 29 by 1 September 2007.

Research and Evaluation

49. The Department is evaluating the success of its employment programmes. The evaluation focuses on those prisoners who were not working regularly prior to imprisonment, to ensure that the Department was evaluating the results of the prisoners with the highest level of need. The review involved interviews with the prisoners, but also with Department staff, and with instructors.

50. Preliminary results indicate that 42% (39) of prisoners indicated having some form of paid employment planned for their release. Sixty-five percent (60) had copies of qualifications they intended to show a prospective employer. Sixty-two percent (57) had potential referees with whom a potential employer could speak. Overall, there was positive confidence expressed by prisoners about finding work and working post-release.

51. The final report will be delivered in March 2007, after the participants have been surveyed post-release to determine their employment outcomes.

52. The Department is also examining the feasibility of using its Rehabilitation Quotient (RQ) methodology to assess recidivism-related outcomes for offenders who have participated in prison-based employment training. This is subject to adequate data on individual prisoners' employment training experiences while in prison, as well as the ability to locate sufficient "control" offenders (offenders with a similar risk of re-offending, released from prison in the same period, and who did not participate in employment activity while in prison) whose outcomes can be compared to the target group.

53. When this post-release data is available it will be incorporated into the employment planning model and will provide an 'effectiveness' factor to assist determining the best activities to be involved in.

Focus on Māori

54. At a societal level, employment and education statistics show that Māori have lower levels of educational achievement than non-Māori,[1] are less likely than non-Māori to be part of the labour force,[2] and that Māori are three times more likely than non-Māori to be unemployed and the disparity is wider now than it was a decade ago.[3] These societal issues are likely to be even more obvious in the prison environment. Maori prisoners are therefore more likely to have labour market needs than other prisoners.

55. The Department does not currently have data for Māori participation in employment and employment-related education in prison. However, as part of the Prisoner Employment Strategy, the Department is currently upgrading its systems to enable it to collect a better picture of Māori participation and outcomes. Better data on participation and outcomes for Māori are likely to be available early 2007.

56. Māori are at the forefront of the Prisoner Employment Strategy and the Department recognises that it needs to improve outcomes for Māori. The Department plans to:

Publicity

57. The Department has prepared a Communications Strategy for the Prisoner Employment Strategy 2006-2009 and a separate strategy for Release to Work. The Department will proactively manage external communication to advise employers of the opportunity to use prisoner labour to fill areas of labour market shortage. I will be releasing a media statement to highlight the progress with the Strategy.

Next Steps

58. The Department will continue to work to increase the level of prisoner employment, both inside prison, and on Release to Work. The progress so far will inform the Department's efforts to develop performance measures for prisoner employment. The Department will report back to Cabinet on the progress it has made, with further detail about performance measures, in July 2007.

Consultation

59. The Treasury, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Health, State Services Commission, Police, Te Puni Kokiri, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, Ministry of Education, Tertiary Education Commission, Ministry of Social Development, Department of Labour, Ministry of Women's Affairs, and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet have been consulted during the development of this paper.

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61. The Department intends to include specific detail of its actions to increase outcomes for Maori in its next report back, scheduled for July 2007.

Financial Implications

62. There are no financial implications associated with this paper.

Human Rights Implications

63. The human rights implications are covered in the section on the International Labour Organisation Convention on Forced Labour (paragraph 48).

Gender Implications

64. Female prisoners make up 6% of the total prison population. Implementation of the Strategy will need to ensure that the needs of women are specifically considered in the development of education and employment related policy and programmes.

Legislative implications

65. There are no legislative implications associated with this paper.

Recommendations

66. It is recommended that the Cabinet Business Committee:

1. Note that in the seven months since Cabinet approved the Prisoner Employment Strategy 2006-2009, the Department of Corrections has made significant progress in implementing the Strategy and is increasing the amount of prisoner employment in a variety of activities including:

2. Note that the Department is working with central agencies including the Ministry of Social Development and the Department of Labour to improve labour market knowledge and to generate more effective employment opportunities for prisoners.

3. Note that the Department of Corrections and the Department of Labour are working to ensure that the Prisoner Employment Strategy meets all the requirements of the International Labour Organisation Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) and will report-back to Cabinet on this in July 2007.  

4. Note that the 2007 Tertiary Funding Information limits access to student component funding when the Department facilitates prisoner enrolments in publicly available trade and technical national certificates, and

5. Direct the Department of Corrections and the Tertiary Education Commission, in conjunction the Ministry of Education, and the Treasury, to provide a report to Cabinet in March 2007 on the long-term policy and funding approach for prisoner access to Department-facilitated publicly available trade and technical national certificates.

6. Note that the Department of Corrections will report back in July 2007 on progress for year one of the Prisoner Employment Strategy.

Hon Damien O'Connor
Minister of Corrections

Footnotes

1 http://www.tpk.govt.nz/Māori/education/default.asp

2 http://www.tpk.govt.nz/Māori/work/default.asp

3 http://www.tpk.govt.nz/maori/work/default.asp

4 Kaitiaki are the group most closely associated to the land on which the new Department of Corrections' facilities are being built.