Corrections set to grow 43% on way to becoming largest government department

Without getting into an argument about whether locking up so many people works or not, the cost in talent, time, effort and money on both sides of the bars is saddening.

If you want to get a good feel for the issue, check out John McCrone’s piece on Stuff.

In it, Finance Minister Bill English is quoted as saying the Corrections Department is the fastest growing portfolio and in two or three years will be the country’s largest government department.

That is larger than the two current big boys – the Ministry of Social Development and Inland Revenue.

By BigCake’s calculation to get passed this pair, Corrections  will have to grow 43% in that ‘two or three years’.

I’m assuming English was doing his measuring by staff numbers. Social Development’s  2009/10 budget was $18.2 billion (another sad number) compared with Corrections’ $1.35 billion.

Even the extra $431.7 million allocated over the next four years to help Corrections manage a prison population that rises from 8200 prisoners to a projected 12,500 doesn’t make much difference to this gap.

Social Development has about 10,000 staff, IRD 6000 and Corrections about 7000.