Parole spin

The NZ Herald has a story stating offenders released on parole are less likely to reoffend and end up back in prison than those who are released without conditions.

Firstly I think a figure showing 43.8% of parolees have been reconvicted within only two years shows how much of a failure the system is.

But as to why the rate is even higher for those who don’t get parole? Well to not get parole you have to be amongst the worst of the worst in prison, so it is no surprise those people have a slightly higher offending rate. I’m actually surprised the difference isn’t far more pronounced.

So the comparison between those who do and do not get parole isn’t a controlled experiment as it is dealing with different sorts of criminals. To see if parole actually does make any difference at all, one would have to randomly select some prisoners to get parole and some not to, and then compare if the conditions of parole lower reoffending. The reality is that Corrections is unable or unwilling to enforce most parole conditions, and the prisoners know this, so I would be surprised if there was a huge difference.