By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

excluded any interventions (an estimated 7,985 prisoners) and 4 percent above theprojection which had taken into account the new interventions (an estimated 7,809prisoners). For the Māori population, prison figures were particularly alarming.Although Māori only comprised approximately 14 percent of the New Zealandpopulation; in 2006 they accounted for 53 percent of cases leading to imprisonment(Ministry of Justice, 2008). Furthermore, the likelihood of receiving a custodialsentence was again greater for the Māori population, with 13 percent of Māorioffenders receiving custodial sentences over community sanctions or fines, while forNew Zealand European and Pacific peoples this was 8 percent (Ministry of Justice,2008). The reality, then, was that New Zealand’s prison population was fastapproaching crisis point.At first, the high prison numbers were celebrated by the Labour Government inparliamentary debates as proof that it had satisfied public expectations to ‘get tough’on violent offenders. This was in part due to the fact that, since the inception of theSentencing and Parole Reform Bill in 2002, New Zealand’s rate of imprisonmenthad grown from 150 per 100,000 of population (Ministry of Justice, 2008) to peak ata rate of 200 per 100,000 of population in September 2007 (Department ofCorrections, 2008b). Labour Party member Tim Barnett made the followingcomment in 2005:It seems to me that there is a very successful story to tell both interms of law and order and in terms of justice. In the last 6 years wehave seen New Zealand’s crime rate go to the lowest level for 23years. Labour in Government has responded to the outcome of thereferendum in 1999 by implementing a series of tougher laws. Thatmeans that the more serious offenders spend longer in prison, havingbeen sentenced for longer periods; also, there is a higher barrier priorto their getting released … Four new prisons have been opened inthat period, and New Zealand now has, internationally, a very highimprisonment rate.(New Zealand Parliament, 2005b: Par. 2, emphasis added)One consequence of such high imprisonment rates was the operation of prisons atmaximum capacity. The Department of Corrections noted in its Annual Report that‘[the a]verage occupancy for 2003/2004 was 96 percent, although for the last twomonths of the year average occupancy exceeded 100%’ (Department of Corrections,80