39019 (2024). Hon Dr Duncan Webb to the Minister of Justice

39019 (2024). Hon Dr Duncan Webb to the Minister of Justice: How many more people are likely to be in prison at any one time in the event the the proposed sentencing reform is passed into law and what will the costs to the corrections system be when the framework is fully implemented?

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I am advised the Ministry of Justice has projected that the if all the sentencing reform proposals are passed into law (based on current proposals) the prison population will increase by between 1,480 and 1,730 after ten years, with most of the impacts occurring in the first five years. The Ministry of Justice has estimated the cost to Corrections of all these proposals to be between $165.1m and $192.7m per annum after ten years. This estimate reflects the marginal cost to Corrections of managing the additional prisoners within the existing prison network. It does not include the capital investment and other associated expenditure that would be required to invest in any additional new capacity to meet the projected increase in prisoner population. The cost of additional new capacity varies significantly dependent on the prison site, prisoner classification and the amount of existing infrastructure to cater for additional prison population. The impact of policy changes on the prisoner population cannot be considered in isolation as network capacity and resourcing needs to be assessed across the entire prison network. The Government will monitor the impact of the sentencing reforms after the law is changed to inform any future funding decisions that may be needed to ensure capacity matches demand.