Māori leaving prison feel they are 'set up to fail' after being released

Māori leaving prison feel they are being "set up to fail" upon being released into the community with no housing and nowhere to go, and have told public health researchers the system is set up to send them back to prison.

Associate Professor Paula Toko King from the University of Otago, Wellington and Māori health expert Gabrielle Baker have been studying ways to improve the health and wellbeing of Māori who leave prisons, and their whānau.

Their policy paper, released on Tuesday, contains recommendations for the Government based on interviews with Māori leaving prison which are broadcast on the podcast, 'TIAKI'.

Lead author Gabrielle Baker told RNZ that the people they spoke to felt they were being thrown in the deep end on leaving prison.

The paper found one of the most urgent needs is for the Government to increase the one-off 'Steps to Freedom' grant that is provided to people leaving prison, although not everyone is eligible.

"They're entitled to the Steps to Freedom grant, which is a one-off payment of 350 dollars and that amount hasn't increased since the early 90s. So that 350 dollars is supposed to cover everything you can imagine, your bond, your rent, electricity as you set yourself up, food, clothing, appliances, and so that's not very much support at all," Baker said.

The researchers estimated the true cost faced by people in their first week out of prison to be as much as $1800 in the main centres, she said.

"It costs Corrections $3864 to hold someone in prison for a week, but the Steps to Freedom grant is so much less than that, so moving the steps to freedom grant up would still be saving the government money while making it an effective or more useful support."

Baker said better housing support was also essential, a report earlier this year from the Audit Office found people released on remand receive even less planning support than people released after serving sentences.

Employment support as well as access to healthcare, including mental health care, services were also important, she said.

"What we heard directly from some whānau was that they felt they were being set up to fail and that Steps to Freedom grant... is an example of that. When you have so little money that you can't do the thing it's meant to do, what options do you have left?

"Those options are not equipping you to have safe secure housing, to be employed, to be able to feed yourself, clothe yourself, stay warm, stay dry."

The interviewees also identified rebuilding the connection to their whānau, hapū and iwi to be important, all of which were interrupted and made more difficult by prison time, she said.

Those connections are essential when people leave prison, she said.

"We did hear some positive stories though about support, but mostly these related to whānau who had been connected to kaupapa Māori services and the kind of thing they told us was that engaging with those services meant that many of the obstacles that faced otherwise had been removed. So there's some good news there, but those were the minority of stories."