39020 (2024). Hon Dr Duncan Webb to the Associate Minister of Justice

39020 (2024). Hon Dr Duncan Webb to the Associate Minister of Justice: How many more people are likely to be in prison at any one time in the event the three strikes legislation will is passed and what will the costs to the corrections system be when the framework is fully implemented?

Hon Nicole McKee: I am advised the Ministry of Justice has projected that if the three strikes legislation is passed into law the prison population will have increased by between 40 and 100 after ten years.  The prison population will continue to increase after ten years due to more offenders receiving a second strike and offenders starting to receive a third strike.  However, the Ministry of Justice has not modelled the impact on the prison population after ten years of this legislation. The Ministry of Justice has estimated the cost to Corrections if three strikes legislation is passed into law to be between $4.8m and $12m in the tenth year after being passed into law. In line with an increase in the prison population after ten years, the costs to Corrections per annum will increase accordingly 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 Three Strikes legislation after the law is changed to inform any future funding decisions that may be needed to ensure capacity matches demand.