Doing the crime, doing the time

There have been whispers that a new Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment [AODT] Court is opening in Hamilton. The first AODT Court was opened in Auckland and Waitakere as a pilot in November 2012.

In 2019, the then Minister of Justice announced his intention to make the two pilot courts permanent and establish a third court in Waikato.

This court aims to break the cycle of offending by treating the cause of that offending.

It provides an alternative to prison for people whose offending is driven by alcohol or drug substance abuse disorders.

The problem I have with this initiative is that a huge proportion of criminal behaviour is intrinsically linked to alcohol and drug substance abuse.

I believe that if an offence warrants prison time as a punishment, then it warrants prison time, regardless of a person’s addiction issues.

It may be a harsh statement, but too often in New Zealand, I think the courts’ emphasis is to help the offender rather than punish a crime and bring justice to the victim.

Let’s also not forget that rehabilitation programmes are available in prison and judges already use their sound judgment in ordinary courts about whether prison is the appropriate sentence for an offender.

The topic got me thinking about whether the New Zealand court system was becoming too soft on offenders, offering ‘easy ways out’ for people — home detention, community detention, supervision sentenced, and others.

The data I pulled from the Ministry of Justice shows otherwise.

In 1980, there were just over 218,000 convictions in courts around New Zealand.

Of these, six per cent were jailed.

Skip ahead 20 years to the year 2000, and the total number of convictions drops to 174,081.

More surprisingly, the percentage of those sent to prison is almost 20 per cent.

There are even fewer convictions in 2020.

With 149,070 convictions, it is the lowest number annually since 1980.

And the imprisonment rate is 22 per cent.

New Zealand’s population was just 3.1 million in 1980, compared with 4.8 million today – a 54 per cent increase.

So, is New Zealand’s overall criminal activity decreasing? Or are our law enforcement agencies just homing in on the really bad guys, sending them to prison, and not sweating the small stuff?

In 1980, 127 people were convicted of homicide and related offences, compared to 215 in 2020.

Population-wise, there are more convictions in 2020 for homicide and related offences than in 1980.

For acts intended to cause injury, we have 613 convictions in 1980 and a whopping 14,769 in 2020.

Other offences with increased convictions are “sexual assault and related offences”, “abduction, harassment, and other offences”, “robbery, extortion, and related offences”, “illicit drug offences”, “prohibited and regulated weapons and explosives offences”, and “offences against justice procedures, government security, and government operations”.

Offences that have a decreased conviction total are “miscellaneous offence”, “traffic and regulatory offences”, “public order offences”, “property damage and environmental pollution”, “fraud, deception, and related offences”, “theft and related offences”, “unlawful entry with intent”, “dangerous or negligent acts endangering persons”.

With the knowledge of this data, I would make a call that New Zealand is arguably more dangerous now than it was in the 1980s.

Is it time to avoid imprisonment when it comes to alcohol and drug addiction problems?

Or is that just a façade to justify reducing the prisoner population, despite a rising number of serious crimes?