Remand numbers dropped in 2025 as prisoner numbers reached record high – no one knows why

The number of remand prisoners then rose from 4218 to 4537 at the end of March this year. This growth accounted for almost all of the rise in the total prison population in that period (319 more remand prisoners compared with only 29 more sentenced prisoners).

Remand prisoners as a proportion of the total prison population is also shrinking, from 44.4% in March 2024 to 43.5% in March 2025 to 40.7% in March 2026; the population fluctuates seasonally, so annual trends are best represented by comparing data for the same time of year.

It comes as the Government announces public departments, including Corrections, will be expected to improve its service with a shrinking budget overall.

Budget Day on Thursday is expected to include more money for more frontline prison staff. With a current capacity buffer of about 2000 prisoners, there are no immediate needs for new funding for additional capacity.

The department is already used to dealing with a shrinking per-prisoner budget.

Budget 2025 had provided $98.4 million a year in operational funding – also mostly to hire more frontline staff – to cover a forecast 10,860 prisoners by June this year. This was already exceeded in March this year, when the prison population reached 11,143 – an all-time high, and expected to keep rising.

Corrections described this predicament last year as a “sub-optimal” level of frontline staffing. It had asked for additional funding to be held in tagged contingency in case it was needed, but the Government rejected this and instead told Corrections it could ask for “out of cycle funding”, which has not been needed.

“Corrections has been able manage initial additional costs within baseline funding through to 30 June 2026,” the department told the Herald.

The silver lining, in terms of the fiscal pressure from a rising prison population, is that the March 2026 prison population is about 400 fewer than what was forecast in the 2025 justice sector projections.

With the sentenced population expected to continue growing due to government polices including Three Strikes and a cap on sentencing discounts, reducing the remand pressure is considered the best way to ease budgetary pressures on Corrections.

Finance Ministers will have welcomed the drop in the remand population for most of 2025, but how to replicate it remains an open question without clear reasons why it happened, or why the pattern reversed this year.

The drop in remand prisoners was mentioned during Scrutiny Week in December last year, when Corrections bosses appeared before the Justice select committee.

“We saw a growth rising up to 44% in 2024 [remand prisoners as a proportion of the total prison population], dropping down in June [2025] to 41.7%,” Corrections chief executive at the time Jeremy Lightfoot, who is now heading the new Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport, told the committee.

“As of today [December 1, 2025], we’re down at 38.6%. So we’re seeing some ‘interesting changes’ would be the best way for me to describe it at the moment. We don’t quite know enough at the moment as to what may be driving some of those changes.”

Asked if the change had anything to do with Government policies, he said it was too early to say.

By the end of December 2025, the proportion had crept up to 39%, and by the end of March 2026 to 40.7%. This is still below what it’s been since mid-2022, when the prison population started to rise following a sustained period of decline.

The remand population as a proportion of the women’s prison population also fell in 2025. It was 52% at the end of 2025, down from 58-59% earlier in the year.

Asked about any new insights into the reasons behind the remand population changes, the Justice Ministry deferred to Corrections, which noted the cross-sector work to improve the timeliness of the justice system.

“This work aims to reduce the average time required to resolve a case, while also improving the quality and effectiveness of court proceedings, and ultimately reduce the average duration of custodial remand,” Corrections said in a statement.

The Heraldthen asked for and was provided with the average number of days remand prisoners spend in jail, by quarter. This seems to fluctuate seasonally, so it’s best to compare one quarter with the same quarter in the previous year.

The average duration rose every quarter in 2025 compared to the 2024 quarters, which does not appear to correlate with the drop in the number of remand prisoners in 2025, or the drop in the proportion of remand prisoners compared to the total prison population.

In an updated statement, Corrections said the remand population and the time each prisoner spends on remand “is influenced by a number of complex factors, such as timely access to justice, capacity of the courts, and government policy settings”.

“As Corrections does not determine who is remanded in prison, we are limited in what additional information we can provide.”

The completion of a 596-bed addition to Waikeria Prison in Waikato has ensured enough capacity for the short term.

This has been achieved in part by more double-bunking: 45% of all prisoners were double-bunked in June 2025, up from 40% in June 2024, 34% in June 2023 and 27% in June 2022.

While prisoners are screened for suitability, double-bunking can still present health and safety issues. Last year, a prisoner was charged with the murder of a man he shared a cell with in Mt Eden Prison.

The number of prisoner-staff assaults and prisoner-prisoner assaults in 2024-25 were the highest on record, driven mainly by non-serious assaults and assaults resulting in no injuries.

The most recent prison bed capacity, from April 8 this year, was for 13,312 people – enough for a buffer of about 2000.

Capacity is being expanded through the redevelopment of Christchurch Men’s Prison, which should add 240 beds by late 2029. A second phase, which is yet to be funded, would add a further 240 beds by 2032.

Construction is also underway for an additional 316 places in Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison, including a high security unit expected to be ready by early next year.

A fast-track application to expand Auckland Prison at Pāremoremo has also been lodged.

“There’s another one, too, that’s going through Cabinet, so I can’t talk about it,” Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell told the Herald last year.

“But yes, there’s lots of planning and investment going into the network itself, and upgrading and modernising the network.”

The remand population has been growing since 2014, primarily due to an increasing number of offenders being in jail for offending while on bail or otherwise failing to comply with bail conditions.

“Remand population growth was also affected by cases taking longer to progress through the court system‚" the 2022 long-term insights briefing into imprisonment 1960-2050 said.

“This has meant that people on custodial remand spend more time in prison awaiting trial and sentencing outcomes, while those on bail in the community spend longer periods living under restrictive bail conditions.”

At the time, at the end of 2022, the remand population made up 40% of the prison population, “the largest proportion ever ... and expected to increase in the future”.

This is what has transpired, until March last year.

Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.