Summary
HOME detention, which began in late 1999, was hailed at the time as another innovation in the judicial area in a long line of such reforms stretching back to the days of Ralph Hanan in 1960s New Zealand. One of its appeals, of course, was (and probably still is) economic -- keeping people out of prison saves the taxpayer tens of thousands of dollars every year. But home detention also recognised that there had to be a better way of dealing with lower-end, non- violent offenders than simply locking them away in a cell, especially now that we had the technology enabling us to consider such alternatives.
It was probably inevitable that home detention would be seen as a soft option in some quarters, and still is, but it is disappointing to learn that some politicians want it abolished on the grounds that it hasn't prevented offending, or re-offending. There were never any guarantees in that direction when the scheme was mooted, and realistically, never could be. But the Corrections Department, which has operational responsibility for home detention, does itself no favours by claiming it can't issue figures on a collated national basis to show how many detainees offended while on home detention.See the full content of this document
Extract
Home Detention a Valuable Tool
However, what the department did have to say in defence of the scheme was revealing, even if it hasn't silenced ...
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