Hiding offenders away with electronic bracelets in their homes isn't the easy sentence many think, in spite of a recent case in Auckland that went badly wrong.
Matu Reid was serving a sentence of home detention when he fatally shot two workers at a construction site on Auckland's Queen Street. Photo: RNZ / Ziming Li
The spotlight's been on home detention since the Auckland CBD shootings.
Questions raised from the tragedy include: why was a man with a record of violence not in jail? How did Matu Reid get home detention when his list of crimes was long and included strangling his partner?
Today on The Detail we ask if home detention is the easy option – is it sitting around on the couch, watching TV and ordering delivery food?
"I imagine if I was on home detention that's what I'd be doing," says criminal defence lawyer John Munro.
But he says it's not really that relaxed – and likens it to a long Covid lockdown without the walks.
Covid's restrictions were "very difficult for a lot of people, including myself, and home detention can be up to 12 months," he tells The Detail.
"But you don't get to go out, necessarily – whereas at least with Covid you could go out for a walk and get some outside time, get some fresh air."
An electronic ankle bracelet keeps track of the detainee's whereabouts. Conditions differ case-by-case – they may not have internet, might have exceptions to go to the supermarket, and might be told they can't see certain people.
And they might, like Reid, get to go to work.
"It's certainly no easy sentence," Munro says. "I think there's a real misconception in the public that it is. I've had a lot of clients who don't like it because it's so hard. People really struggle on it."
To be eligible for home detention, an offender has to be given a prison sentence of two years or below. The judge can then choose to give the offender home detention if they meet certain criteria.
Home detention was introduced in 1999 by the parole board, but not given out for criminal sentences until 2007.
"At the time, the prisons were bulging," says NZ Herald senior journalist Derek Cheng.
"Most of the people in prisons were people serving short sentences and home detention was a way to not only ease the pressure on the prison system, but also as a way to try and help people on short sentences ease back into the community."
Cheng says evidence shows it's taken the pressure off prisons.
"As far as reoffending rates go, someone on home detention is much less likely to reoffend than someone who serves a short prison sentence."
But should Reid have been granted home detention, which allowed him to go to work – with fatal results?
Auckland University law associate professor Carrie Leonetti says Reid's family violence convictions bring that into question.
She isn't a big fan of prison either, but doesn't know if there's any better solution out there.
"My personal preference is that we not use the criminal justice system as our primary response ... but in the world we have now, which is bad police responses, bad protection order responses, bad family court responses, I feel like we have this short-term situation where at a certain point, we have got to start talking about putting domestic violence perpetrators in prison, at least until we build up these better preventative responses."
For the history of home detention, the political divide on the issue, and what one expert believes was the critical flaw in Matu Reid's sentencing, listen to the full podcast.
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