Guest Post: Cultural reports - You didn’t think you’d get rid of me that easily, did you?

A guest post by a reader on Kiwiblog:

I regret to inform you that cultural reports are back, wearing a wig and a false mustache.

In March 2024, Parliament passed the Legal Services Amendment Bill, which abolished public legal aid funding for section 27 reports, also known as “cultural reports”. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith stated:

David Farrar: This would be a good research project

The Herald reports:

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.

Kerre Woodham: The trouble with cultural reports

As promised, the coalition government has followed through on its promise to scrap Labour's target of reducing the prison population by 30%, although it looks like Chris Hipkins got in before the government could in the lead up to last year's election.

Then Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, in a desperate scramble for votes, said the prison population reduction target is already gone. Gone. It was part of the big dump pile that Chris Hipkins created when he became Prime Minister, anything he deemed to be unpopular with the public got scrapped in a bid for re-election.