Doing it properly

The government's policy on prisoner compensation is an ill-thought-out, knee-jerk reaction which encourages further abuse and violates international human rights standards. It is clearly aimed primarily at limiting the government's future liability for abuses by preventing and discouraging claims. This is a long, long way from ensuring that the victims of crime are compensated. Can we do the latter without doing the former? Of course we can - and quite simply too. The law already allows judges to award compensation; we simply need to encourage them to do so more often. This has been opposed by Phil Goff as it "doubly victimises the victim" by raising false hopes of receiving payment. But the answer to that problem is to take steps to ensure that victims will be paid. GreyShade suggests one such method:

Under current law the judge often declines to make such an award because the accused lacks the means to pay. This law could easily be changed and the victim would then have the same right as any other creditor (we could even make them a preferred creditor) if the prisoner subsequently receives money from any source. This debt (and other debts) could be protected by amending the insolvency act so that bankrupts going to prison would not be eligible for automatic discharge until three years after release (ie the period of bankruptcy would be "frozen" while the bankrupt was incarcerated). This seems much preferable to overriding a statute of limitations. It also removes any element of retrospection since the compensation order is made by the trial judge at the time of original sentencing.

Alternatively, if the government wants to be more proactive, it could establish a scheme to extract reparations payments similar to that used for the student loan scheme.

Neither of these options violates human rights standards, and yet the government has dismissed them out of hand. And it's hard to see any reason other than the fact that they would not limit the crown's financial liability for its inability to ensure that it runs a decent, humane prison system rather than a zoo.