Since the Bail Amendment Act was passed in 2013, the prison population has jumped by over 1500. This has created a crisis in capacity – there are only 300 beds left in the entire prison system. The National Government and Bill a new 3,000 bed prison at Waikeria to address the problem – at a cost of $1 billion.
I have created a website, It’s Time to Cut Prison Population which advocates against the new prison being built.
It contains information describing the historical background to the growth in New Zealand’s prison population.
It contains some simple quick fix solutions to reduce the prison population by 30% within six years – and explains why it needs to be done in six years – and not 15 as proposed by the Labour government.
It also has an online petition which allows all New Zealanders to email the government to take immediate steps to lower the prison population and cancel plans for the proposed prison.
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Is it all- because of the Bail Amendment Act? or do we also have concerns with other pieces of legislation, such as ‘3 strikes’? what else contributes to overincarceration? What I am concerned with is the systemic racism, in the entire justice system, the institutional mentailty is appalling, there has to be a wider approach at addressing the increasing prison population especially for our people [Maaori]. Maybe, it was the last governments way [National] of increasing employment because that is what it is, it is a business, and immigrant white Afician’s are doing well in these career’s.
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What else contributes to overincarceration?
Here is a link to the historical background to our record high rate of imprisonment. http://cuttheprisonpop.nz/historical-background/
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