Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Mark Mitchell: Corrections Minister on the prison population will increasing by 36 percent by 2035

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Mark Mitchell: Corrections Minister on the prison population will increasing by 36 percent by 2035 · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It looks like we might need some more prison beds.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Let's start building, shall we? A report from the Ministry
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: of Justice predicting our prison population to go by thirty
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: six percent over the next ten years? Can we handle it? Corrections?
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Minister Mark Mitchell with me this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning, Hey, good morning Ryan.
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  Speaker 1: So will we have enough beds for our four fourteen
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  Speaker 1: hundred and two hundred, fourteen thousand, two hundred prisoners by
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty four?
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah? So yeah, The short answer is yes. The Department
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  Speaker 2: has already opened eleven four hundred and seventy two operational
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  Speaker 2: beds and which is around two thousand more than November
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, and by the end of the year
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  Speaker 2: this is expected to exceed twelve thousand, twelve thousand as
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  Speaker 2: we as we open up the new Waykria prison that
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  Speaker 2: we went and opened cut the ribbon on last week.
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  Speaker 2: In long term we'll see the Wykiri expansion, which we've
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  Speaker 2: committed to and funded, and also the redevelopment of the
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  Speaker 2: christ which prison means prison.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: What does the Waykarri expansion get us too?
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  Speaker 2: That's an additional eight hundred and ten, So then.
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  Speaker 1: We're at twelve thy eight hundred roughly, So we need another,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: well more than a is that what christ Church gets us?
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yes? So christ Church obviously delivers more, and then of
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  Speaker 2: course we've got a they've also we're in the line
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  Speaker 2: or it just the corrections are doing that stage outstanding
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  Speaker 2: job and forward planning, so it also means that they've
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  Speaker 2: got a arm. They're also preparing for aupan prism an
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  Speaker 2: expansion here if we need it.
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  Speaker 1: What about stars? The staff's been a problem, and it's
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  Speaker 1: even as recently as late last year at Rim attacka prison,
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  Speaker 1: So how are we going to start at all?
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  Speaker 2: So we're doing extremely well on staffing. The attrition level
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  Speaker 2: has dropped from around fifteen percent down to less than
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  Speaker 2: eight percent. There's been a huge recruitment campaign that we
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  Speaker 2: ran last year which saw one hundred and seventeen thousand applications,
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  Speaker 2: and as of thirty first of May twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 2: we've had an additional nine hundred and twenty five full
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  Speaker 2: time equivalent staff deployed. So we're doing extremely well with
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: our requit routing, our training and deployment of new Christians officers.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: And so yeah, we're actually in a really good shape
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  Speaker 2: a moment.
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  Speaker 1: Your critics will say, oh, look, you designed people in
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  Speaker 1: the slammer, and you're not actually solving the root calls
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  Speaker 1: of why these people are offending in the first place.
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  Speaker 1: It's the you know, these people that we will lock
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  Speaker 1: away for longer will have kids, They'll have families. Those
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  Speaker 1: families more likely once parents locked away, more likely to
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  Speaker 1: be committing crimes in the future themselves. I mean, we're
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: creating a future disaster here.
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  Speaker 2: No. I think that we've been really clear that we
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  Speaker 2: are focused on public safety, and under the previous government,
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  Speaker 2: the only target they had around public safety was reduced
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  Speaker 2: in the prison population by thirty percent, and we saw
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  Speaker 2: a mess of increase in violent crime. So there are
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: some people that don't want to stick to the rules,
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  Speaker 2: that think they're above above the law. They are often
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  Speaker 2: residious violent offenders, and the safest place to put them
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  Speaker 2: is into a correction system or facility, where then we
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: can start to work on rehabilitation and hope that they
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  Speaker 2: rejoin society and make good decisions in their lives. There's
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: a huge human cost and economic cost to having these
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  Speaker 2: people in the community, and we've been very clear as
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  Speaker 2: the government that we're not going to tolerate that. The
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  Speaker 2: flip side of it is is that we're doing a
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  Speaker 2: lot of work around social investment to try and get
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: into people's lives earlier, for example, begins intergenerational and try
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  Speaker 2: and stop them, try and reduce that pipeline of people
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: coming into the criminal justice system.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we were chating about that. Yes, they hate lots
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  Speaker 1: of texts coming in. Why are you because the cost
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  Speaker 1: of a prison like one hundred and sixty K a
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  Speaker 1: year or something, right, why are you giving them beds?
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  Speaker 1: This is one person. Get the prisoners working on our
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  Speaker 1: roading infrastructure.
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  Speaker 2: Look, there's lots of different programs inside corrections and one
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  Speaker 2: of the things that I was really focused on when
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  Speaker 2: I became minister is making sure that we're doing things
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  Speaker 2: that actually give them real life skills so when they
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  Speaker 2: come out they've got a much better chance of reintegrating
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  Speaker 2: and making good decisions, because you know, we don't want
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  Speaker 2: to have a mess population in our correction system as
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  Speaker 2: a country. But the reality of it is that we've
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  Speaker 2: been very clear that we're prioritizing public safety.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, do you think they're the one the really bad
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  Speaker 1: ones will be in there forever? Do you think they
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  Speaker 1: should get heating in bed.
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  Speaker 2: Look, there's there's some that there's some people that just
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  Speaker 2: are always going to do bad things and it doesn't
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  Speaker 2: matter what you do. I mean, at the end of
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  Speaker 2: the day, Ryan, it comes down to personal responsibility and
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  Speaker 2: personal choices. So we can line up the best rehabilitation
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  Speaker 2: programs in the world until they actually want to engage
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  Speaker 2: with it themselves, until they actually want to do the
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  Speaker 2: hard work themselves, then you know we're going to continue
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  Speaker 2: to need prisons.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Mark Mature, the Corrections Minister.
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  Speaker 2: For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
• 4:44
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• 4:47
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