'Throwing away the key' not the answer

Sir Ron Young will spend the next three years chairing the Parole Board and says he will not rush...
Sir Ron Young will spend the next three years chairing the Parole Board and says he will not rush into making any changes to its operations. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
The new head of the Parole Board is one of Dunedin's most celebrated sons. He speaks to Rob Kidd about his first months in the job at a time when the board is busier than ever. 

As a judge, Sir Ron Young was responsible for sending offenders to prison, now the respected legal mind chairs the body which determines their release.

Dunedin born and bred, the new head of the Parole Board has fond memories of his formative years in the south.

He grew up in Balmacewen Rd and trod the well-worn path to study law at the University of Otago.

While his career trajectory was steep, Sir Ron managed to find time during his days as a student to work for the Evening Star.

The dalliance with journalism was not enough to distract him from his love of the law.

After a swift rise to prominence, he was appointed to the bench at the Dunedin District Court.

"I really very much cut my teeth in judging there," Sir Ron said.

"It wasn't South Auckland so it wasn't overwhelming. It was a great place to start to get a feel for what it was like to be a judge in a kind and decent community where the crime rate wasn't particularly high but there were interesting cases to find my feet on."

In 1993, Sir Ron was appointed Chief District Court judge and, after an eight-year stint, spent the next 14 years in the High Court.

After his retirement from the bench in 2015, he was knighted for his services to the judiciary.

But the hiatus was brief.

Queenstown clinical psychologist Chris King.PHOTO: GUY WILLIAMS
Queenstown clinical psychologist Chris King.PHOTO: GUY WILLIAMS
Sir Ron conducted judicial training in the Pacific and is currently a member of the Court of Appeal in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

Now he chairs the Parole Board at a time when it is conducting more hearings with more oversight of offenders in the community than ever before.

The board's annual report, recently tendered to Parliament, shows 8321 hearings were conducted in the 2017-2018 year - up by nearly 600 on the previous year.

Sir Ron said the attraction to the role came not from its similarity to his previous positions but its difference.

"I'd done the front end, if you like, I'd sent people off to prison. And I thought this a completely different role because the rules of litigation ... don't apply in parole. It's an open system. We're completely interested in safety in the community and the prisoner and what we can do to rehabilitate him and get him back into the community."

He sensed a recent shift in the winds of public opinion.

With general derision of the three-strikes legislation and the tough-on-crime stance it represented when enshrined in law in 2010, popular thinking on how to deal with criminals is changing.

Sir Ron said there was an understanding now that "locking them up and throwing away the key" was not the answer.

"Whereas if you treat prisoners like human beings, if you get them rehabilitation, if you get them reintegration, then you've got good prospects of them being safe in the community. But they aren't going to change without effort and that's what got me interested in the job," he said.

While the community's beliefs about crime may have changed, its understanding of the parole system may not have.

Many are aware that inmates serving a sentence of more than two years get a parole hearing after a third of their prison term.

But Sir Ron stressed the vast majority were not released at the first opportunity.

Prisoners on longer sentences served an average of 79% of their term before release, he said.

Though he could understand the public's aversion to offenders being released without serving their full sentence, Sir Ron said the statistical evidence was clear.

"The rate of reoffending goes down the longer someone is on parole," he said.

"In other words, if you can keep people on parole over an extended period, slowly learn to trust them, slowly integrate them ... that's the best chance of avoiding further offending."

Parolees had a reoffending rate in the 12 months following their release of 10%-12%.

If there was any statistic that measured the success of the board, that was probably best, Sir Ron said.

The legal luminary's appointment has coincided with renewed political discussion about reducing the prison population.

Last year, nearly a quarter of those applying for parole were successful - a three-year high - but paradoxically there was simultaneously the highest number of prisoners released at the end of their sentence.

Under Sir Ron's gaze, there would be absolutely no bending under political pressure.

Any suggestion the board could be manipulated to release prisoners earlier was absurd, he told the ODT.

"I would just never be part of that kind of thing," he said.

"I've never seen anything in the Parole Board's work that would suggest such a thing. It'd be crazy. It would be unwise. If we started releasing people who were unsafe, it would come back to haunt us."

Joining him as a newcomer to the board is Queenstown clinical psychologist Chris King who was among the most recent appointees late last year.

He had worked with Corrections since the 1990s and more recently in prison management.

Before sitting on the Parole Board, Mr King spent six years assisting in the establishment of Vanuatu's first board.

The experience was an eye-opener, he said.

"What you get to see is when you're in an environment like that, where there hasn't been a parole system, you really get it why it's important. If releases are just left to sentences running out or subject to influence from other quarters of the Government or anything like that, it's all very very untidy."

Sitting on a three-person panel, he said, meant coming to a consensus on parole was not always simple.

"Having a board environment really adds to the robustness of the decision making; and some of the discussions are really robust. You really want to get to a place where the decision is the right one and that's not always straightforward."

So did holding someone's liberty in the balance result in any sleepless nights?

"There are some cases where you think back to them," Mr King said.

"You certainly feel the gravity of the decision. Particularly as a newer member, you feel this is an important decision."

But he was quick to stress that each decision was made in a structured way, using a range of information.

Last year also marked a high in the number of victim's submissions heard by the Parole Board.

Any registered victim had the power to be heard by the panel before it considered an offender's release and 177 had done so in 2017-2018.

Mr King said their views were imperative.

"I think it's really positive for people to be involved in the process because they're listened to and they're listened to really really carefully."

Sir Ron echoed those sentiments and urged any victims who wanted to have their say to contact police to ensure they were added to the register.

Rather than making any snap changes to the way the board operated, he said he would spend the remainder of this year sitting in as many hearings as possible.

"Then I want to sit back and review what's happened and think about ways in which I might improve the system. I think it would be a bit arrogant of me to rush in at the moment and say too much about that until I know a bit more," he said.

Sir Ron's position is fixed for three years - "then we'll see what happens."

Add a Comment

 

Advertisement