Hon Matt Robson
Minister of Corrections
May 2001
Alternative sentencing: Day Reporting Centres for teenagers who have received a first adult conviction
- Two key principles are brought together under this heading. The first is getting the right people into prison - making sure that teenage offenders who are dangerous are kept out of the community. The second principle involves the idea that, whenever possible, teenagers who are at the beginning of what may become a lifetime of crime should be given intensive services to address their unmet needs and to increase their chances of success in the mainstream of society. The most successful setting for the rehabilitation of young adults involves community-based rehabilitation that is focused on placing the young person in a job, initially with a high degree of supervision.33
- Options 5 and 6 propose sentencing of selected teenagers who have been convicted of a
first adult offence to sanctions that require their participation in intensive rehabilitation in
community-based centres called Day Reporting Centres. The offenders selected for both
options would be those at greatest risk of becoming established adult offenders. Risk
assessment technology developed specifically for identifying this group is being trialled
during 2000/01. Option 5 involves a proposal for high-risk teenage offenders whose
offence does not make them likely to be imprisoned, and option 6 involves those who are.
The two groups are separated so that Cabinet may, if it wishes, endorse the diversion of
teenagers with community sentences to Day Reporting Centres without endorsing the
diversion of teenagers liable to imprisonment.
- Offenders who enter the adult justice system while still teenagers are at risk of becoming
established adult offenders, Figure 10 below illustrates survival without re-offending for
all teenagers imprisoned at first offence in 1993, It shows a pattern of rapid re-offending
with more than one-half of offenders reconvicted within one year of first sentence
completion, and potentially 80 to 90 percent reconvicted within five years. This re-
offending pattern is characteristic of high-risk established adult offenders.
- Options 5 and 6 involve intensive rehabilitative services and would be delivered through
the Department of Corrections' Integrated Offender Management system, which is
introduced and discussed at the start of the following Rehabilitation section. Briefly, the
Department of Corrections is implementing its Integrated Offender Management strategy
to help reduce re-offending - as Integrated Offender Management becomes established
the Department will be well placed to target and intervene with specific groups of
offenders including high-risk young adult offenders, The number of programme places
that can be provided will largely determine the ability to impact significantly upon the re-
offending and re-imprisonment rate of offenders,
OPTION 5: EARLY IDENTIFICATION AND REHABILITATION OF HIGH-RISK YOUNG ADULT OFFENDERS - DAY REPORTING CENTRES
- Option 5 involves the same set of general principles as option 4 - 'first contact' with the justice system - in this case the adult justice system - would result in an assessment of risks and needs, followed by provision of intensive rehabilitative services for cases that are judged to be at significant risk of becoming established adult offenders. As with the youth justice system a 'young age at first serious offence' is the single strongest indication of progress to the next stage of offending. Therefore, this option focuses on those who commit a first adult offence as teenagers.
Figure 10: Re-conviction of teenagers imprisoned at first offence
Source: Wanganui Computer records for 1993
- Under this option the offence would still result in an appropriate sanction, part of which may be withheld in return for good performance in the rehabilitation programme. Serious violent offences would still result in imprisonment.
- This option involves the introduction of a new community-based service known as Day Reporting Centres, which would provide intensive rehabilitation and supervision for young men and women in the 15 to 18 age range, Offenders in the programme would normally live at home,
- A typical candidate for this programme will be from a socially and economically deprived background and will have accumulated a number of entrenched unmet needs - conduct disorder, school failure, substance dependence, no work record or employment prospects, criminal associates - all possibly made worse by an entrenched defiant attitude and/or low IQ.
- Identifying youth at risk of a lifetime of offending is one key to success with this option.
The Department of Corrections has a risk assessment instrument designed for this
purpose under trial in 2000/01. The instrument has been developed by combining a
number of threads from current international best practice for the identification of youth
who are potentially violent, recidivist, and psychopathic adult offenders. Given a
satisfactory result from the trial and the availability of sufficient resources, this instrument
will be available for introduction nationally by the end of the current financial year.
- Key features of the Day Reporting Centre programme proposal include these:
- A programme that draws on the research-proven interventions for youth set out in the Department of Corrections' publication When the bough breaks34 the best of which report reductions in subsequent offending of between 30 and 50 percent. We assume a 25 percent effect size - re-offending reduced from perhaps 70 percent of cases to 45 percent.
- For Maori, effective services could be obtained by resourcing existing iwi and marae support structures and, by drawing on whanau strengths, on whakapapa, and on tikanga Maori. There would be emphasis on strengthening the capacity of the family/whanau to support pro-social development of the young person.
- Particular emphasis on the multi-systemic therapy kind of programme, which has produced 50 percent reductions in subsequent offending for this age group and offender type in overseas trials.35
- Strong focus on developing employment skills followed by job placement with initial supervision.
- An 'elective' Maori-offender-focused component to the programme, employing the principles set out in the Reducing imprisonment of Maori section of this report.
- Compulsory attendance, five days a week for six months.
- Nighbtime curfew for selected offenders, with electronic monitoring, where appropriate
- Strong rewards for compliance and strong sanctions for non-compliance.
Footnotes:
- 33
- Zampese and Gray 1998
- 34
- Zampese and Gray 1998
- 35
- Hennegeler et al, 1993
