Justice Sector Forecasts
The Ministry of Justice, on behalf of the justice sector, produces an annual Justice Sector Forecast.
The Justice Sector Forecast is a key instrument for strategic planning within the sector. Among other uses, it helps plan prison capacity needed for the future. Justice sector agencies monitor trends in the actual prison population and the actual number of non-custodial sentences against the outputs of the forecast.
The forecast draws on recent trends as well as the best available estimates of how those trends may change in the future, based on current legislation and policy. The base case forecast does not estimate the impact of policy or operational changes that are still under development, though such changes may be addressed by means of scenario analyses.
Scope of the Justice Sector Forecast
The forecast, which has been produced for over a decade, originally projected only the prison population. Since 2009 the scope of the forecast has been expanded so that it now projects the number of:
- summary and indictable prosecutions
- people held on remand awaiting trial
- people serving prison sentences
- people starting a sentence of community work
- people starting a sentence of supervision
- people starting a sentence of intensive supervision
- people starting a sentence of community detention
- people starting a sentence of home detention
- people released from prison on parole
- people released from prison on conditions.
In 2011 the scope of the forecast will expand further, to include the number of monetary penalties and the number of people serving non-custodial sentences.
Further information
If you are interested in finding out more about the Justice Sector Forecasts, please contact us on justiceinfo@justice.govt.nz.
