Kia ora and Hello!
I was delighted to be nominated as President-Elect of the International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology (IACFP) and started in the role in January 2025 together with Dr Emma Regan who commenced as our President at the same time. It is truly rewarding to be working alongside my colleagues on the Board. We bring a range of diverse backgrounds, professional experience, and skills that serve to strengthen our pursuit of the objectives set in our strategy.
A little about me – I am originally from the small island of Malta in the Mediterranean where I completed my BA in Psychology (Honours). I was awarded a scholarship from the European Union for an MA in Human Rights and Democratization and completed my thesis in London. This experience helped cement my values in social justice, equality, rights of vulnerable groups, and interest in effective dialogue to break down barriers. While the idea of studying law and focusing on Human Rights was incredibly appealing, I chose to pursue further studies in Clinical Psychology in Australia and became a Registered Clinical Psychologist in 2004 after moving to New Zealand where I now live with my partner and two children.
I joined the Department of Corrections New Zealand in 2006 and worked with men and women serving prison and community sentences. I conducted court reports and reports to the New Zealand Parole Board for several years. For the past 10 years I have progressed my career in leadership roles and for the past six years I have held the Chief Psychologist/Director of Programmes role. I am lucky to work with my team of incredible professionals and experienced psychologists at a strategic level. This includes strategic responsibility for the design, development, implementation, and monitoring of psychological services, rehabilitation programmes, and interventions. Psychology research is also a key focus of my team, particularly ensuring that our risk assessment tools are normed and valid for the New Zealand population. I am specifically focused on improvements to programmes and treatment delivery to achieve better outcomes and help people desist from crime. In New Zealand, a big focus of our strategic goals is to address the overrepresentation of our Indigenous people and inequity. Māori people are overrepresented within the justice system with just over 50% in our prisons, and for women this percentage is even higher.
I wish to draw some attention to the remand context given that it seems to be an increasing problem for most jurisdictions. Most correctional systems were designed to provide rehabilitation and reintegration services to people with prison sentences. However, the profile of the prison population has changed and is forecasted to continue changing in many jurisdictions. In New Zealand the proportion of the prison population that is in remand is expected to continue growing significantly. The average time spent on remand has also significantly increased and the percentage of people in prison who are released with time served on sentencing has increased. This changing prison population profile means that people are spending longer in remand, and consequently less time on sentenced. This reduces their opportunity to engage in rehabilitation and reintegration services. Additionally, Māori people are spending longer periods in remand compared to non-Māori, which highlights an equity issue with services not being delivered in remand.
I recently returned from a trip to Adelaide, Australia where I got to re-connect with my counterparts from correctional and justice jurisdictions in Australia. This working group was established years ago to provide advice and expertise to ministers as well as serve to share projects, research, and new initiatives across New Zealand and Australia. A key focus this year was on remand – sharing plans to deliver services to help address the growing remand population across Australia and New Zealand. It was clear that a number of jurisdictions are experiencing similar challenges, including a rapid increase in prison population, prison capacity issues, and a shortage of staff. In some jurisdictions this has resulted in a significant impact on the delivery of rehabilitation programmes and the need for alternative ways to deliver services. Some countries and states have opted to change legislation to address the growing remand population including:
- Enabling the delivery of offence-focused programmes to those who are remanded and convicted (awaiting sentencing)
- Mixing of people on remand with the sentenced population to enable participation in rehabilitation and reintegration
- Changing the law to apply privilege to disclosures within treatment for those on remand (thus the person cannot be prosecuted for any criminal disclosures), allowing more genuine engagement
Addressing family violence was also a priority for many corrective services including within the remand space. Planning, designing, and implementing services within remand can be challenging due to a number of reasons, e.g,:
- Unpredictable timeframes (length of time people spend on remand can vary)
- Dependence on court procedures and systems
- Infrastructure and quality of therapeutic rooms
- Staffing ratios
- Recruitment and retention of therapy staff (and a global shortage of psychologists)
- Designing or procuring flexible evidence based programmes – this means we cannot “cookie cut” programmes that work in some environments and expect them to be delivered in exactly the same way in the remand environment
In summary, while introducing or increasing delivery of rehabilitation and reintegration services in remand is challenging, it is required, and it is hoped that it will serve to support people leaving prison with better prospects and reduce re-offending. In my view, the global networks we create and maintain can serve to support practitioners and policy makers to make improvements in evidence-based and culturally responsive services.
In my view, the global networks we create and maintain can serve to support practitioners and policy makers to make improvements in evidence-based and culturally responsive services.
This is something I am passionate about – sharing solutions, enabling psychological research that can be applied in practice, providing advice that can shape legislation, and other exciting ways that psychology can influence positive outcomes for people. It is also what drew me to IACFP in the first place and to serve as a Board member is a privilege.
Jessica Borg
Chief Psychologist/Director Programmes,
President-Elect
