New data shows a drop in projected future prison populations compared to earlier estimates
The Ministry of Justice has recently published a justice sector projection report in collaboration with its justice sector partners, the Department of Corrections, NZ Police, Crown Law, and the Serious Fraud Office.
Each year, the Ministry of Justice looks at the long-term trends across the justice sector to estimate what will occur in seven critical points across the justice system over the next ten years. These points are court inflow, remand rate, average time on remand, proportion convicted, imprisonment rate, imposed sentence length, and proportion of the imposed sentence served in prison before release.
The Ministry of Justice said these key points reflect how people move through the justice system and how long they spend there, ultimately impacting resourcing across the justice sector. The newly released data covers projections from 2022 to 2032.
This year’s report has shown a drop in projected future prison populations compared to earlier estimates. The prison population in 2032 is expected to increase to 9,400, a significant reduction from the estimated 14,400 by 2027. The decline 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 report projects that the sentenced prison population will remain largely stable at around 4,700, while the remand population is projected to increase from 3,500 in November 2022 to 4,700 by June 2032. Ministry of Justice general manager for sector insights Rebecca Parish explained that the projected increase in the total prison population over the next ten years is due to underlying trends in the remand population.
“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 caused by Covid-19 restrictions have also contributed to this trend. However, several initiatives are already in place to combat these issues, such as the High Impact Innovation Programme’s Bail Support Services, which helps people apply for bail and adhere to bail conditions. People who engage with the service are likelier to achieve bail and less likely to breach their conditions or re-offend.
Parish also pointed out that the Criminal Process Improvement Programme (CPIP) aims to establish better ways of working within the court system and improve timely access to justice to reduce people’s time on remand.
Parish further said that projecting long-term trends across the Justice sector is challenging and that these projections represent only one possible future, not the future. She also stressed that justice sector agencies had developed strategies to reduce re-offending and improve people’s justice system experience. The full report can be accessed through the Ministry of Justice’s website.
