What the Ministry of Justice Just Tried to Do — And Why It Matters

 

When I asked the Ministry of Justice for information on the effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes, I expected a straightforward response. After all, this is a justice system that has spent decades dealing with:

prisoners

recidivism

rehabilitation pilots

alternative courts

reintegration programmes

If any agency in New Zealand should understand what “effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes” means, it is the Ministry of Justice.

Instead, they responded by claiming my request was “too broad to interpret.”

Let’s be clear:

That is not confusion.

That is avoidance.

1. Pretending not to understand the word “effectiveness”

The Ministry asked me to clarify what rehabilitation models I meant — despite the fact that I explicitly asked for:

“evaluations, reports, or internal assessments regarding the effectiveness of rehabilitation‑focused justice models.”

Effectiveness in justice systems has a universally understood meaning:

Did the programme reduce reoffending?

Did participants stop committing crimes?

Did they reintegrate successfully?

Did it outperform prison‑only approaches?

These are basic metrics.

They are the foundation of every rehabilitation programme worldwide.

If the Ministry genuinely does not know what “effectiveness” means in this context, then they are not fit for purpose.

But let’s be honest — they know exactly what it means.

Their claim of “unclear scope” is simply a bureaucratic manoeuvre to avoid releasing information that may show:

rehabilitation programmes outperform incarceration

recidivism is not improving under current policy settings

evidence contradicts the Government’s prison‑expansion agenda

successful models (including RRR‑aligned approaches) have been ignored

This is not ambiguity.

This is strategic ambiguity.

2. The classic OIA manoeuvre: pretend confusion, then narrow the scope

Their response follows a familiar pattern used when an OIA request threatens to expose uncomfortable truths:

Pretend the request is unclear

(“too broad to interpret”)

Force the requester to narrow the scope

(“please specify which programmes you mean”)

Exclude anything not explicitly named

(“we interpreted your request as only covering the programmes listed”)

Refuse the rest under s18(f)

(“substantial collation or research”)

This is not assistance.

This is containment.

3. The transfer to Corrections — another avoidance tactic

The Ministry transferred the recidivism section to Corrections.

Technically valid under s14, yes.

But strategically convenient.

Corrections is notorious for:

slow responses

limited transparency

reluctance to release granular recidivism data

The Ministry has effectively said:

“We don’t want to touch the part of your request that could show rehabilitation works better than prison.”

That alone speaks volumes.

4. The real issue: If they don’t measure success, that is the scandal

I have now explicitly asked them to confirm whether they measure:

reoffending

reconviction

re‑imprisonment

reintegration outcomes

long‑term desistance

If they cannot provide these statistics, then the Ministry of Justice has been:

funding programmes without measuring outcomes

advising Ministers without evidence

expanding prisons without comparing alternatives

making policy decisions in the dark

And if they do measure these outcomes, then their initial claim of “unclear scope” becomes even more indefensible.

Either way, the public deserves to know.

5. What this reveals about the system

This exchange exposes a deeper structural problem:

New Zealand’s justice system is comfortable expanding prisons.

It is uncomfortable evaluating rehabilitation.

It is even more uncomfortable when someone asks for the evidence behind those decisions.

A justice system that cannot define “effectiveness” — or pretends not to — is a justice system that has stopped caring about outcomes.

And that is exactly how you end up with:

rising prison numbers

rising recidivism

rising costs

declining rehabilitation investment

The Ministry’s manoeuvre is not just bureaucratic.

It is symptomatic.