{"id":238847,"date":"2026-01-18T00:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T00:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/238847\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T00:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T00:14:16","slug":"cost-of-incarceration-corrections-report-reveals-201408-to-keep-a-sentenced-inmate-behind-bars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/238847\/","title":{"rendered":"Cost of incarceration: Corrections report reveals $201,408 to keep a sentenced inmate behind bars"},"content":{"rendered":"

To monitor those on home detention – including the likes of former deputy police commissioner Jevon McSkimming<\/a>, who was in December sentenced to nine months home detention after being convicted of three representative charges of possessing objectionable publications – costs $116 a day.<\/p>\n

A full nine-month sentence for McSkimming will cost the taxpayer about $31,320 to monitor his whereabouts and enforce curfews imposed by the court.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe cost of incarceration revealed in Corrections’ report. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Annual Report notes a large portion of our costs are fixed costs, such as depreciation and amortisation, that are unaffected by a rise or fall in the prison population,\u201d Leigh Marsh, Corrections Commissioner Custodial Services told the Herald.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore… the 2024\/25 Annual Report states that the average cost for a sentenced prisoner is $552 per day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is different to the marginal cost of an additional prisoner entering the prison network. This is currently estimated to be $120,000 per annum which includes overheads such as their food, clothing and bedding, as well as the cost of additional frontline staff required to manage a larger prison population.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

In Australia, according to the Justice Reform Initiative, the average cost per inmate per year is around $182,000 or $499 a day.<\/p>\n

Across America, costs of incarceration vary from state to state from a national median of $103,000 per prisoner or $280 a day.<\/p>\n

In some states like California, they budget $127,800 per person, $350 per day for the 2025-2026 year and in Massachusetts $762,000 ($2087 a day) for some rehabilitation facilities.<\/p>\n

Costs are lower in other states such Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana that range from $39,000 to $51,000, ($106-$139 a day) annually.<\/p>\n

Data from the Council of Europe, for the 2024-2025 year has Bulgaria the cheapest for prison inmates at $4796 a year ($13.14 a day), Azerbaijan, $6080.90 ($16.66 a day) and Turkey $9187 ($25.17 a day).<\/p>\n

In Cambodia, costs have been reported for as little as $737 per prisoner a year, or $2.02 a day.<\/p>\n

Since the National-NZ First-Act Government took over in 2023, there has been an increase in prisoner numbers.<\/p>\n

Under the 2017-2023 Labour-led Government, New Zealand\u2019s prison population dropped from 10,400 to around 7500 by late 2021.<\/p>\n

But it was slowly increasing when they were ousted.<\/p>\n

The number of people in prison under the coalition Government was 10,860 in September 2025 and expected to go beyond 11,000 this year.<\/p>\n

Budget 2025 allocated an additional $472 million to Corrections over five years to manage a growing prison population and associated costs, including funding for more staff and new beds at Christchurch Men\u2019s Prison.<\/p>\n

Marsh said other costs were factored into inmate costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese include food, clothing, bedding, and frontline staffing costs,\u201d Marsh said.<\/p>\n

\"SirSir Graham Lowe hands out certificates with Minister of Corrections Mark Mitchell during the graduation of the prison programme called Kick for the Seagulls. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also accounts for programmes and services provided in prison. We provide people in prison with health services, mental health and addiction programmes, cultural support services, educational opportunities, vocational and employment training, motivational sessions, offence-focused programmes, wrap-around wh\u0101nau support, reintegration services, intensive residential programmes, and transitional accommodation support.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NewNew Zealand’s high-security prison at Paremoremo, north of Auckland. File photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

The Corrections report showed M\u0101ori made up 52% of the sentenced prison population, followed by European 28.4%, Pacific Islanders 12.4%, others (including Asian), 5% and 2% unknown.<\/p>\n

In terms of those in prison, 30%were classified medium security, 23.1% low, 25.5 low-medium, 17.7% high and 2.2% maximum security.<\/p>\n

Age-wise, 7% were aged over 60, while the largest group of inmates were the 30-39-year-olds who made up 36.5% of the prison population.<\/p>\n

\"ThereThere are 64 individual gangs in New Zealand Prisons. Image Paul Slater.<\/p>\n

In September the Herald revealed a third of New Zealand\u2019s estimated gang population<\/a> was behind bars.<\/p>\n

The figures showed patched gang members <\/a>and their associates made up 3124 of the 10,800 inmates.<\/p>\n

Between them, they are members of 64 different gangs.<\/p>\n

The Mongrel Mob<\/a> tops the list in terms of gang members or associates behind bars (742), followed by Black Power<\/a> (439), Crips<\/a> (310), Killer Beez<\/a> (285) and Head Hunters<\/a> (189).<\/p>\n

Police say there are around 10,000 gang members and associates in New Zealand – around the same number as sworn police officers.<\/p>\n

Joseph Los\u2019e joined NZME in 2022 as Kaupapa M\u0101ori Editor. Los\u2019e was a chief reporter, news director at the Sunday News newspaper covering crime, justice and sport. He was also editor of the NZ Truth and before joining NZME worked for urban M\u0101ori organisation Wh\u0101nau Waipareira.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To monitor those on home detention – including the likes of former deputy police commissioner Jevon McSkimming, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[140802,140803,140804,6128,4057,25207,4187,802,24392,10938,94577,44161,809,111,43,139,69,1118,8442,1560,21501,1517,5161,61,379,80],"class_list":["post-238847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-140802","tag-140803","tag-140804","tag-bars","tag-behind","tag-corrections","tag-cost","tag-costs","tag-each","tag-herald","tag-incarceration","tag-inmate","tag-keep","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-prison","tag-report","tag-reveal","tag-reveals","tag-sentenced","tag-to","tag-year","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}