Wellington Prisoners Aid Closure Avoidable

The closure of the Wellington Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society (PARS) this Thursday is totally avoidable and will make our community less safe, Grant Robertson, Labour MP for Wellington Central said.

"The Government's decision to end the nationally funded contract for PARS on 31st of March was incredibly short-sighted. The closure of the Wellington PARS service is a direct result of this,” Grant Robertson said.

“Our communities will be less safe because released prisoners and their families will be left without vital day to day support. While the in-prison work of Wellington PARS will be undertaken by another group on a short term contract, the drop-in centre and other community based activities will cease.

“Wellington PARS relied on grant funding and donations for these services and they can not secure that funding without the certainty of central government support to keep the organisation running.

“By ending the national contract without any proper transition process National has forced this closure.

"PARS has played a vital role for over 100 years in ensuring that there is support for reintegration of released prisoners into society. By working with released prisoners and their families PARS manages to reduce reoffending and ensure that parolees meet their conditions.

“There will now be a huge loss of experienced and passionate people and fewer education programmes to support reintegration. All the while the government is mucking around with stop gap measures deciding whether to have a new national contract.

"Judith Collins should have been working with PARS to resolve any problems that the national organisation had before she cut off their funding.

“The government is directly responsible for this closure and needs to move swiftly to work out how reintegration services will be provided before more damage is done."

ENDS

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