Our recommendations

Our recommendations are listed in the order that they appear in the text of this report. The five recommendations that the Department needs to address as a matter of priority are in bold type.

Many of these recommendations encourage the Department to always comply with its prescribed requirements and procedures.

Recommendations about preparing to release offenders on parole

We recommend that:

1. the Department of Corrections continue to work with the New Zealand Parole Board to improve the clarity and consistency of information in parole assessment reports and psychological assessment reports about an offender's risk of re-offending;
2. the Department of Corrections always enquire into the proximity of registered victims to an offender's proposed accommodation, and take appropriate mitigation action, before the offender is released from prison;
3. the Department of Corrections allocate all offenders to individual probation officers before each offender is released from prison;
4. the Prison Services group and the Community Probation and Psychological Services group within the Department of Corrections work in close consultation so that relevant staff are aware of the travel arrangements for all offenders when they are released to an area outside the area where they were imprisoned;
5. the Department of Corrections provide national guidance for service managers on how to apply the assessment criteria for the Offender Warning Register; and
6. the Department of Corrections complete assessment forms for the Offender Warning Register for all offenders at all required times, and provide clearly documented reasons for any decisions to override the assessment criteria.

Recommendations about supervising offenders on parole

We recommend that:

7. the Department of Corrections complete offender induction tasks within a week of an offender's release on parole;
8. the Department of Corrections prepare plans for managing offenders that contain all the required information, and complete those plans within the required time frame;
9. the Department of Corrections regularly visit the homes of offenders on parole;
10. the Department of Corrections approve reporting and visiting requirements for offenders who reside in a psychiatric institution or residential rehabilitation centre;
11. the Department of Corrections complete the required re-integration checklist during the first week of an offender's period on parole;
12. the Department of Corrections refer only offenders who meet the appropriate criteria for psychological assessment and rehabilitation programmes, and schedule appropriate referrals as soon as possible;
13. the Department of Corrections provide probation officers with customised and specific training in using the Integrated Offender Management System; and
14. the Department of Corrections redesign the Community Probation and Psychological Services operations manual so that users of the manual can easily find the information they are looking for.

Recommendations about monitoring offenders on parole

We recommend that:

15. the Department of Corrections regularly check how probation officers are managing high-risk offenders;
16. the Department of Corrections enter case notes in the Integrated Offender Management System that clearly cover the offender details that probation officers have to monitor;
17. the Department of Corrections review offender plans as frequently as required and address all relevant matters relating to an offender's progress with their parole;
18. the Department of Corrections take appropriate and prompt enforcement action for all offenders who have breached their parole conditions or have re-offended;
19. the Department of Corrections notify registered victims within the required time frames about convictions for an offender's breach of parole or when orders recalling the offender to prison are granted, declined, or quashed; and
20. the Department of Corrections prepare sentence completion reports for all offenders before the end of the offender's period on parole.