Introduction |All inmates released |Reconvictions by violent offenders released from prison |Reconvictions by sex offenders released from prison | Summary
An earlier report published by the Ministry of Justice, Conviction and sentencing of offenders in New Zealand: 1991 to 2000 (Spier, 2001) included a chapter that examined recidivism patterns for all people convicted in 1995. However, the information that was able to be included in that report on reconvictions following imprisonment sentences imposed in 1995 was limited. While conviction histories were available for between two and three years after the 1995 conviction for all offenders (as conviction histories were extracted in March 1998) - for those imprisoned it is more meaningful to examine reconvictions from the date the offender was released from prison, rather than the date they were sentenced. As this was the method used in the earlier report, a significant number of imprisoned offenders for whom post-release reconviction information was not available for at least two years had to be excluded from the analysis. A further limitation of the data on those imprisoned in 1995 was that the release dates from these sentences had to be estimated because they were not recorded in the base data. This could have had some, although most likely a small, impact on the accuracy of reconviction rates for offenders released from prison. The report, therefore, warned that the reconviction information presented for prison inmates needed to be treated with some caution.
Given that there is considerable interest in the extent to which released prisoners reoffend, alternative data were obtained from the Custody Supervision Subsystem of the Law Enforcement System on all people released from prison in the period 1995 to 1998. This data does not have the limitations discussed above as the basis for the data is the actual release date from prison for each inmate. Both criminal (non-traffic) and traffic conviction histories were extracted in June 2001 from the Law Enforcement System for these offenders. Therefore, a complete history of each person's convictions before imprisonment is available, as well as reoffending information for up to five year after release from prison (for those released in 1995 or the first half of 1996).
This paper summarises some of the information available on the prior and post conviction histories of the 22,340 inmates who were released from prison between 1995 and 1998[1]. Information is provided for all inmates released, then for inmates released after serving sentences for violent offences and sexual offences, as there is particular interest in reconviction rates for these two groups of offenders.
Footnotes
1 Inmates who were released from prison on appeal, inmates who were deported on release, and inmates who reverted to custodial remand because of further pending charges were excluded from the data used in this paper. People who died in custody were also excluded.