Our speaker was Kris Gledhill, who is now at AUT Law School and previously a colleague of Ken Palmers at The University of Auckland. He presented numerous and very insightful statistics on New Zealand's Sentencing Regime-A Comparative Analysis. NZ has a relatively high prison population, of which 29% are on demand. Remand prisoners account for the growth of the prison population in the last 10 years. Kris said that the number of judges is capped and many remand prisoners have to wait a long time to have their cases heard. 51% of prisoners are Maori. Reported crime rates are decreasing but the perception of crime is increasing. Judges are issuing tougher sentences.
Our speaker was Kris Gledhill, who is now at AUT Law School and previously a colleague of Ken Palmers at The University of Auckland. He presented numerous and very insightful statistics on New Zealand's Sentencing Regime-A Comparative Analysis. NZ has a relatively high prison population, of which 29% are on demand. Remand prisoners account for the growth of the prison population in the last 10 years. Kris said that the number of judges is capped and many remand prisoners have to wait a long time to have their cases heard. 51% of prisoners are Maori. Reported crime rates are decreasing but the perception of crime is increasing. Judges are issuing tougher sentences.