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Speaker 1: More issues with our courts. Our report from the Chief

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Speaker 1: Justice Halenween Kellman says trials are becoming longer, more complex,

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Speaker 1: and it's clocking up the system. There's some incredible figures

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Speaker 1: in there, like a manslaughter of murder makeups over seventy

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Speaker 1: percent of all our trials. The average trial now takes

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Speaker 1: seventeen days. So Ron Young is the former High Court

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Speaker 1: judge and former chair of the New Zealand Parole Board

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Speaker 1: and joins you this wanting good morning to.

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Speaker 2: You, sir, Good morning Andrew.

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Speaker 1: So this is a creaking system, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's certainly under stress and you can see that

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Speaker 2: by the huge increase of how long trials are taking,

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Speaker 2: particularly in the High Court.

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Speaker 1: So what does that mean for our entire justice system.

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Speaker 1: It's all well will and good to get tough on crime,

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Speaker 1: but there's no point getting tough on crime if we

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Speaker 1: can't process them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean that's true, of course. I mean

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Speaker 2: being tough on crime is important. But the important thing,

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Speaker 2: of course is to try and focus on reoffending and

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Speaker 2: try and reduce the crime rate and reduce the number

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Speaker 2: of victims. So simply in people in prison longer and

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Speaker 2: longer more and more often. Actually isn't solving the crime problem,

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Speaker 2: it's making it worse.

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Speaker 1: The UK is facing a similar issue, and there they've

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Speaker 1: actually suggested shorter sentences. Is that a good idea or

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Speaker 1: not they have?

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Speaker 2: I think it's a good idea because it's combined with

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Speaker 2: rehabilitation in the community, and we know that's the most

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Speaker 2: successful thing, and we know that that's the way to

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Speaker 2: reduce the number of victims.

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Speaker 1: Some of those stay shorter sentences lead to greater acidivism,

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Speaker 1: Well they don't.

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Speaker 2: The evidence is quite the contrary. The longer you put

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Speaker 2: people in prison, particularly at the beginning of their life,

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Speaker 2: the more likely it is they're going to be joining

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Speaker 2: gangs for their protection. In prison, the more likely they're

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Speaker 2: going to get information about how to commit further crimes.

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Speaker 2: So it definitely makes it worse.

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Speaker 1: So surely sending criminals out into the streets is increasing

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Speaker 1: crime as well when they haven't been rehabilitated in the

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Speaker 1: prison system.

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Speaker 2: Sure well, that's the point that they're not proposing. In

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Speaker 2: the UK. Have seeing people just into the ad say

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Speaker 2: good luck, you know, here's your two hundred and seventy

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Speaker 2: five or three hundred and seventy five dollars. What they're

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Speaker 2: doing is focusing on rehabilitation so that they are controlled,

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Speaker 2: they're under very strict situations within the community, but also

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Speaker 2: getting rehabilitation because in the end, that's the most important

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Speaker 2: thing for the community.

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Speaker 1: Should I be shot or should we all be shot?

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Speaker 1: That murder attempted murder a man sort a category four

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Speaker 1: offenses now make up seventy six percent of all new

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Speaker 1: cases in the High Court back in twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 1: Back in twenty twenty one, it was fifty six percent.

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Speaker 2: YEP. It is a horrifying statistic and it's also in

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Speaker 2: terms of the stress on courts. It's horrifying that it's

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Speaker 2: taking seventeen plus days on average. I can recall when

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Speaker 2: I was a young lawyer back in the nineteen seventies

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Speaker 2: and eighties, murder trials often took three four five days.

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Speaker 1: So what's the answer? More money, More, more resources are one?

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Speaker 2: Well, the only way it's all it's more resources. But

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Speaker 2: it's not just judges and lawyers, although that's part of it.

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Speaker 2: It's also courtrooms. It's a sophisticated equipment that's required. There's

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Speaker 2: a whole series of things that are required to help

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Speaker 2: a court system run if think effectively and efficiently.

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Speaker 1: So Ron Young, I thank you so much for a

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Speaker 1: good time.

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