Taranaki criminals owe $10 million in fines to courts

More than $10 million is owed in fines by about 6 per cent of the Taranaki population, Ministry of Justice figures reveal.

The Ministry of Justice released the data following an official information request by the Taranaki Daily News.

Put in perspective, the Taranaki fines total is just 1 per cent of the national total of $799.2 million of both unpaid fines and reparation owed by 539,000 people at December 31, 2009.

Last year, 1779 Taranaki people had $2.5m in fines remitted. Of those, 100 who had unpaid fines totalling $280,000 were imprisoned in return for remission of fines.

Fines tallies are handed over to the judge when people come up for sentencing in the local courts.

In many cases, the sentences are increased in return for a remission in fines – many of them having clocked up thousands of dollars. A high proportion are unemployed with little chance of repaying the fines.

Judge Allan Roberts tells some offenders that he will add one week's prison in return for $1000 remission in their fines. Most offenders headed for jail appear happy to take the deal and for the chance to wipe the debt hanging over their heads.

Others who are called to court for non-payment of fines, and who have no assets which can be seized to pay those fines, are also given the option of community work or jail.

Currently, the highest individual fine owed in the region is $201,275.44 by a 66-year-old woman convicted of fraud.

This is being paid under time payment, as ordered by the judge.

The ministry said 514 people in Taranaki with a total of $1.3m in fines had their fines remitted in return for community work in the last year.

But fines and reparations were not effective in reducing crime, Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar, of Hawke's Bay, said. Remission of $1000 of fines in return for one week's jail would shock people who were unaware it was happening.

"Most working people would think that's a pretty good hourly rate. I think they would be horrified by that."

In several states in the United States they had experienced a 35 per cent reduction in youth crime because they were cracking down on fines and reparations.

"They are not sending them to jail. They are just making sure a fine or reparation is repaid."

If they were not paid, the youths were sent to work camps, Mr McVicar said. "It is working in Australia as well," he said.

The best system was to have reparations paid before the offender left the court.

The offender is required to sit in the cells until family or friends paid the money over to the court.

- © Fairfax NZ News