Prisoners have cost taxpayers more than $24 million in healthcare for the 2012/13 year – that’s almost $1 million more than the previous year.
Stuff.co.nz is reporting that Sensible Sentencing Trust spokeswoman Ruth Money is outraged at the figures, given the wait for care faced by many victims of offending.
But the Department of Corrections' director of offender health, Bronwyn Donaldson, says the department has a "statutory obligation to provide primary healthcare services to prisoners".
Though the most recent figure is a nearly $2 million decline from 2010/11, that can be attributed to the closure of two prisons, Wellington Prison and New Plymouth Prison, in November 2012 and March 2013 respectively. This means a drop in the total prison population from 19,670 in 2011/12 to 19,250 in 2012/13.
