The Conversation
International · 2 hrs ago
✦ 72← Left
It costs a million dollars a day to keep low-risk defendants on remand. More prisons aren’t the answer
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Quality 72/100
Partisan intensity 62/100
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← Left ✓ Fair headline
A New Zealand opinion piece challenges government prison spending of NZ$503 million, arguing that increased incarceration of low-risk defendants is costly and ineffective, and that most assaults occur in private homes rather than public spaces.
It costs a million dollars a day to keep low-risk defendants on remand. More prisons aren’t the answer
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The government has framed its NZ$503 million budget spending on prisons as necessary to maintain public safety and manage a growing prison population, forecast to increase by 36% from the current 10,000 to 14,000 by 2035.
The appeal to public safety is tied to the goal of reducing violent crime, which most voters will understandably support.
But this broad messaging obscures two crucial facts. Most assaults in New Zealand happen inside private homes, not in public spaces. And the
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