This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

For those who end up serving time for their supposed fraud, they often come out of prison with large debts to repay in addition to living in severe financial hardship.[1] On the other hand, the government has written off $5 billion in tax debt from tax evaders since 2008.[2] Given No Pride in Prisons’ demand to decriminalise benefit fraud, we also believe that those who have already been convicted of benefit fraud should have all remaining debts forgiven.

[1] Ibid., 22.

[2] Catriona MacLennan, “Catriona MacLennan: Benefit Debt Punishment Out of all Proportion to ‘Crime’,” New Zealand Herald, 20 January 2015. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11388704.