There is no evidence cultural reports reduce reoffending and cutting funding for them will save money, the Justice Minister says.
The Government confirmed wednesday that it was scrapping the target to reduce prison populations and would no longer fund the cultural reports used in sentencing.
Asked whether the reports might actually save money by avoiding prison sentences and stopping people from committing further crimes, Paul Goldsmith said there was no evidence of that.
this would be an interesting research project. What is the average reoffending rate (and time until reoffending) for those who got a reduced sentence due to a cultural report, compared to those who did not?
Wouldn't it be fascinating if in fact the offenders reoffended more quickly, when they get a reduced sentence?
“We don't think spending $7.5m producing reports like this is a good use of the money,” Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith said people could still give a cultural report orally in court, or in writing, but it would no longer be funded through the legal aid system.
The cost of these reports has increased over 15000% since 2017. It has become an industry of its own.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
5 comments:
It is remarkable how human ingenuity exploits every opening. It must be very taxing to churnout these reports without all reading more or less the same.A high degree of proof is usually required by Courts but this cannot be the case with these. just another machanism to convince offenders that not their failing. I wonder if Goldritz was planning to use one.
I would have thought that a govt that was interested in outcomes and evidence-based policy might have done this research before plucking a policy out of thin air.
I suspect the Supreme Court has recently implicitly redefined concepts of fact and independence and evidence.
@roberft: thankfully, chatgpt (or its cousins) can generate multiple outputs with wonderful variations without taxing any of your mental faculties. i could arm-twist chatgpt to write a sob story for a lady who ran over a pedestrian because she was distracted on the phone. with some effective 'prompt engineering', chatgpt could weave in single motherhood, racial bias, poverty, anxiety etc. to generate something to convince a jury or judge. looking at the quality of justice system in NZ, i'm confident the judge would have the family of the victim pay for trauma counseling for the lady :(
Of late ( last Saturday ) did see a photo of Claus Schwab, whose father
was a confidant of Adolf Hitler. SO father so son ??
Usualy the app;e does NOT fall far from the tree. In this case, it is certainly a rotten apple, which does NOT roll.
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