Cumulative Sentencing on Bail or Parole — ending the "freebie offence"

The Policy: National Real Consequences for Crime — September 2023 →

National promised to end what critics called "freebie" offending — the practice whereby a sentence for a crime committed while on bail, in custody or on parole was simply absorbed into the existing sentence, adding nothing. Under the reform, courts are steered toward consecutive rather than concurrent sentencing for such offences, meaning extra crimes committed while under court supervision add genuine time to a sentence rather than disappearing into it.

What it does:

• Consecutive sentencing encouraged: The Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Act 2025 directs judges toward cumulative (back-to-back) sentences when someone offends while on bail, in custody or on parole, expressly to "denounce behaviour that indicates a disregard for the criminal justice system."
• Not a hard mandate: The government opted to *encourage* rather than require cumulative sentences, a deliberate concession to avoid an automatic prison-population spike — judges retain discretion to impose concurrent terms when consecutive sentences would be disproportionate.
• In force from 29 June 2025: The Act came into effect as part of a broader sentencing package that also caps general mitigating discounts at 40%, introduces a sliding-scale guilty-plea discount (maximum 25%, falling to 5% at the trial door), and extends aggravating-factor provisions to cover retail crime and child victims up to age 18.
• Coalition commitment fulfilled: The cumulative-sentencing provision was a specific commitment in both the National–New Zealand First and National–ACT coalition agreements.

Where things stand:

The law has been on the books for just under a year (as of mid-2026) and is too early to produce conclusive reoffending data. The government, led by Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith, framed the package as restoring public confidence in a system where courts imposed fewer and shorter sentences even as violent crime rose 33% — a trend critics argued eroded deterrence.

Legal academics and the criminal defence bar raised structural concerns before the Act passed. Because offending on bail is already common — roughly 30% of remand detainees are never ultimately convicted — encouraging consecutive sentences risks loading further time onto people who may not be found guilty of the triggering offence or whose overall sentence becomes disproportionate. The Ministry of Justice's own regulatory impact modelling projected the full sentencing reform package could add between 1,480 and 1,730 additional prisoners per annum over a decade, at an annual cost of $165 million to $192 million — figures that sit uneasily beside a Corrections budget already running at $1.94 billion a year and new prison beds costing $890 million for 810 places at Waikeria alone.

Māori over-representation sharpens the debate. Māori make up 53% of imprisoned men, 67% of imprisoned women and 81% of imprisoned youth; any policy that adds sentence length has a disproportionate impact on whānau and communities already bearing the heaviest load. Labour said it was reserving judgment until real-world impact data emerged, while the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori opposed the direction entirely, arguing rehabilitation investment would achieve better long-run public safety outcomes than sentence escalation.

What to watch:

• Reoffending and reconviction rates: The Ministry of Justice is expected to publish annual recidivism data that will, over time, reveal whether longer sentences for bail/parole offenders reduce reoffending or simply delay it.
• Prison population trajectory: Official projections put the prison muster at 11,500–13,900 by 2035 depending on policy settings; tracking annual Corrections population data will show whether the cumulative-sentencing nudge is driving that range toward its upper bound.
• Judicial application: Because the provision encourages rather than requires consecutive sentences, appeal-court decisions interpreting when concurrent sentences remain appropriate will define how hard the policy bites in practice.
• Fiscal review: Treasury and Corrections are due to update infrastructure costings as the prison expansion programme at Waikeria and Christchurch progresses — any blowout will re-ignite debate about whether sentencing reform is value for money compared with diversionary or rehabilitation spending.