Mutual benefit from corrections visits

Steve Greig (left), of the Dunedin police prosecution service,  and city lawyer Debbie Ericsson ...
Steve Greig (left), of the Dunedin police prosecution service, and city lawyer Debbie Ericsson (front right) greet Shanghai delegation secretary Luo Xiao Bing (second from left) and delegation director Sun Yong Jun. Photo by Peter McIntosh.
nexpectedly strong relationships have arisen from a series of fact-finding visits to Dunedin by Community Correction Service officials from Chinese sister city Shanghai, University of Otago Associate Prof Donna Buckingham says.

Prof Buckingham, of the university Law Faculty, has co-ordinated the delegation visits, during which the visitors have undertaken study programmes on law and practice in the New Zealand Corrections system.

The fourth annual delegation from Shanghai is visiting Dunedin this week.

The 19-strong group this week visited the Moana House drug rehabilitation facility and the Otago Corrections Facility, at Milburn, as part of the four-day study programme.

The latest delegation is led by Sun Yong Jun, the director of a section of the Shanghai Community Corrections Service.

Prof Buckingham said that the first visit four years ago had initially been envisaged as a "one-off" event but the visits had since continued and had provided significant mutual benefits.

Shanghai officials had learned more about New Zealand's approach to community corrections, and had also raised awareness in Dunedin about the Shanghai justice and corrections systems, she said.

Closer ties were also being established between Otago University and Shanghai's University of Political Science and Law.

Strong support for the study programmes had been shown in Dunedin by lawyers, community corrections and justice staff, as well as law faculty academics, organisers said.

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