Most of us know someone who has been affected by crime. The goals of the Department of Corrections (the Department) are to improve public safety and reduce reoffending.
This report sets out the findings of a performance audit that focused on the Department's work to reduce reoffending. We wanted to assess how well the Department is managing offenders to achieve this goal. The Department has set a target to reduce reoffending by 25% by 2017. Overall, this would result in 600 fewer reimprisonments, 4000 fewer community reconvictions, and about 18,500 fewer victims each year.
Purpose
We carried out a performance audit to assess how well the Department of Corrections (the Department) manages offenders to reduce their likelihood of reoffending. We wanted to know whether the Department is doing the right thing, with the right offender, at the right time. For the purpose of this report, we use the term "offenders" to refer to all people managed by the Department in prisons or on community-based sentences unless we are specifically referring to prisoners.