NZ Editorial Flays “Whitewash” Report On Parole
New Zealand State Services Commissioner, Iain Rennie, has delivered his report on the well-publicised problems of the parole service. And the New Zealand Herald has delivered its verdict on Mr Rennie’s report:
By any yardstick, Mr Rennie has failed miserably. He has found no one accountable in terms worthy of justifying dismissal. That includes the chief executive of the Corrections Department, Barry Matthews, and the parole head, Katrina Casey. And there is not a murmur about who else, among the problem-plagued department’s staff, should be held accountable for these “serious failings”. The Government’s quest for public-sector accountability seems to have passed Mr Rennie by.
His report is the more abject in that he confirms the department has been failing to make the grade. Corrections’ internal standard is 85 per cent compliance with its own parole management procedures. Last December, it managed 80 per cent. Further, Mr Rennie judged that the department could have moved earlier last year to manage the potential risk to public safety caused by far more offenders being placed on community-based sentences …
The commissioner does not only fudge the issues of accountability. He is equally inept when reporting on the second part of his assignment: what should be done to restore public confidence in Corrections? He suggests the public had simply not picked up on the fact that the department has learned lessons after the deaths of Mr Kuchenbecker, Debbie Ashton – also the victim of a parolee – and Liam Ashley, who was murdered in the back of a prison van … Most logically, the restoration of public confidence would start with the exit of Mr Matthews. Only the identification and dismissal of lower-level staff, who were guilty for the most grievous breaches of parole monitoring, would have rendered that unnecessary. Mr Rennie’s report might have propelled matters to that conclusion. It has not.
There is a lot more background in the article at the NZ Herald.
Australasia, INTERNATIONAL, New Zealand, Probation and Parole