Doing Adult Justice

Source: (2006) In, Report on the 2006 COnference — ‘Beyond Retribution.’ Aukland, NZ: Prison Fellowship New Zealand. pp.71-76.

I want to start by congratulating the conference organisers on their timing. ere is now intense
interest in New Zealand in re-looking at our notions of imprisonment and punishment and
there is currently great activity both at government and non government level in the hope of
taking advantage of this opportunity in the life of our nation to make some useful changes for
us all.
So this conference is both timely and crucial since we have a number of things which we need
to address in New Zealand and I think we now have the maturity, the confidence and more
importantly the people to make the changes which are important.
I intend giving an overview of what is happening, as a humble practitioner in the areas of adult
justice in New Zealand, including of course aspects of post sentencing justice having regard to
my own interest now as chairman of the New Zealand parole board, and I also intend talking
about where I think we can hope to go.
I don’t want to re-iterate the problems, but it is important that we have a clear focus on where we
are, how we got there and the difficulties that face us at the moment. (excerpt)