The projected future prison population has dropped compared to earlier estimates, newly released data shows.
The Ministry of Justice – Te Tahū o te Ture has collaborated with its Justice sector partners including the Department of Corrections and NZ Police to produce the latest Justice Sector Projections.
This year’s report released today projects the prison population in 2032 will increase to 9,400.
While the remand population is projected to increase from 3,500 in November 2022 to 4,700 by June 2032, the sentenced prison population is projected to remain largely stable at around 4,700.
While the overall prison population is projected to increase, it is much lower than what was projected five years ago. In 2018, the prison population was 10,800 and was projected to be 14,400 by 2027.
The reduction in the projected prison population between 2018 and 2022 has been due to a steady decrease in the sentenced population with an increase in non-custodial sentences.
The projected increase in the total prison population over the next ten years is due to underlying trends in the remand population, explained Ministry of Justice General Manager for Sector Insights, Rebecca Parish.
“The remand population is projected to grow in the long-term as people spend longer in remand. This is due in part to cases taking longer to be resolved in court as more events are adjourned and defendants plead guilty later and electing jury trials at a higher rate,” Parish said.
Delays in the court system have been exacerbated by Covid-19 restrictions. However, several initiatives are already in place, and several more are planned, to combat these. Among them is the High Impact Innovation Programme’s Bail Support Services which supports people with applying for bail and adhering to bail conditions. People who engage with the service are more likely to achieve bail, and less likely to breach their conditions or reoffend.
“The Criminal Process Improvement Programme (CPIP) initiative is also designed to establish better ways of working within the court system and improve timely access to justice to reduce people’s time on remand,” Parish added.
“Projecting long-term trends across the Justice sector is challenging. These projections represent only one possible future, and not the future. It’s essential that we understand what will happen under current settings so we can use it as a baseline to measure the success of future changes.”
Justice sector agencies have also developed strategies to reduce reoffending and improve people’s experience of the Justice system. It’s expected successful delivery of these transformative change strategies will significantly, and positively, impact these projections.
The full report can be found here: https://www.justice.govt.nz/justice-sector-policy/research-data/justice-sector-forecast/(external link)