Articles & News

March 17, 2009

NZ Plan for parole 'super teams'

By DEIDRE MUSSEN - Sunday Star Times

New parole super teams are being set up to address the string of blunders and embarrassments over freed prisoners that have plagued the Corrections Department and put public safety at risk.

The proposed teams are described in a report quietly released on the Corrections website, in response to the damning audit of the department's management of paroled offenders.

The department's probation service was overhauled after its mishandling of RSA triple murderer William Bell in 2001, but convicted killer Graeme Burton's shooting rampage in hills near Wellington in 2007 showed major flaws remained.

Burton murdered quad biker Karl Kuchenbecker and shot four mountain bikers while on the run for breaching parole.

The audit into the department's management of 100 paroled offenders, released last month by the auditor-general, ignited a political stand-off between new Corrections Minister Judith Collins and Corrections' chief executive Barry Matthews.

Collins refused to express confidence in him, although a subsequent State Services review cleared him to keep his job.

The audit made 20 recommendations for changes after finding at least one or more of five key procedures crucial for public safety were not followed in most cases.

Parolees were not always managed well and probation staff sometimes failed to comply with procedures.Amid the political fallout, the department released its own report two weeks ago into the problems, which included a proposal for crack "specialist prison release" teams and a raft of other changes to improve its handling of offenders after they leave jail.

The report, "Community Probation and Psychological Services: Plan to Improve Compliance with Procedures for Managing Parole Orders 2008-2009", said the teams would be established by the end of next month and would focus on managing offenders paroled from prison. Staff training and briefing sessions would be completed by the end of June.

The teams will be required to focus on better management of prisoners in the community. They will be responsible for input into the parole assessment process and for monitoring and supervising paroled and recently released prisoners.

A Corrections' spokeswoman confirmed discussions were under way with staff over establishing the new teams.

The report noted the idea was prompted by information that showed staff and managers were not consistently following procedures for managing parolees.

This included the auditor-general's report, the department's internal monitoring of compliance with procedures, and a probation service review last year into the management of all 554 parolees identified as high-risk offenders nationwide.

Remedial action was taken in some cases and those parolees would be re-reviewed this month to ensure they were being well managed, the report said.

The key problem was staff failing to complete procedures in the timeframes specified and sometimes failing to complete procedures at all.

"Overall, induction of new parolees is being done very well, but the timeliness of visits to offenders' residences is being done very badly. The results for other procedures fall between these two extremes.

"These issues were also not assisted by relatively poor documentation in case notes, which made it difficult to determine if or when actions had been taken," the report said.

It said the probation service had been through a "sustained period of growth and change", with significant increases in work load and an almost doubling of probation officer numbers since 2003. About 48% of probation officers had less than two years' experience.

"These two factors combined have impacted on the ability of the service to achieve, and then consistently maintain, compliance with key procedures in managing parole."

It said a survey of Corrections staff attitudes early last year found staff knew sentence compliance was important, but either disagreed or misunderstood it.

The plan highlighted the department's request to government for 134 new probation officers and increased funding to manage the increasing workload.