Rising prosecutions ‘threat to courts’

Press, 31 August 1977, Page 10

Rising prosecutions ‘threat to courts’

PA Wellington. A steady increase in criminal prosecutions in New Zealand is threatening to overwhelm the present court system, according to the annual report of the Justice Department, tabled in Parliament.

The repbrt, by the Secretary for Justice (Mr G. S. Orr), says that the high and apparently increasing volume of offenders is directly responsible for many of the department’s administrative problems, especially in the courts and the penal and probation divisions. It shows that the number of criminal charges heard in Magistrates Courts increased from 117,061 in 1960 to 350,586 in 1975. The increase has been spread over most categories of crime, with minor traffic proceedings accounting for a fairly constant 60 per cent to 65 per cent of the charges.

The report says that the socially disturbing fact revealed qn Magistrates Courts figures is that there has been a great increase in the rate of prosecutions in propor-

tion to the population as well as in the absolute number of prosecutions. In the period 1960 to 1975, the number of charges for which a person was arrested climbed by 200 per cent and the rate per thousand of population rose by 8.64 to 20. The number of traffic prosecutions increased by 219 per cent, with the rate soaring from 34.87 to 85.75 per thousand of population.

Mr Orr concludes that it would not therefore be “a gross exaggeration” to say that the upward surge in prosecutions is threatening to overwhelm the court system.

He says that the situation should be. one of the principal concerns of the Royal Commission on the Courts, which was set up last year to examine the constitution, structure, jurisdiction and administration of the courts.

Mr Orr Says that the reasons for the increase in crime are unclear. There may be some truth in suggestions that New Zealand society has become more criminally inclined or ready to report possible offences to the authorities.

It is also possible that the increase might reflect a more efficient police

force or a predilection with legislation to make offences criminal and then for the police to press ahead with prosecutions without sufficient regard to discretion. Mr Orr says that the most powerful and immediate cause of lawlessness is the comparative succes in recent times of lawbreaking. A feeling has developed, not without justification, that direct and unlawful measures will achieve results that reasoned argument and the merits of a case themselves will not, he says. Of the plight of prison and probation officers, Mr Orr says that they have a demanding, unglamorous, and all-too-often thankless task in dealing with convicted offenders. Industrial action by the officers early this year stemmed partly from the pressures of rising workloads in relation to staff numbers, he says. The report reveals that in the past year, when the Government was asking for severe restraints on department staff nupibers, the inmate populations of penal institutions reached an all-time record of 3062. This had decreased to 2782 by May 1977.