Office of the Inspectorate

Document name

Young People and Young Adults in Corrections’ Custody thematic report – Quick-read summary

Judges’ comments

The judges praised this document as an excellent example of reader-focused writing. They were particularly impressed by its clear purpose and its complete focus on the audience of young people.

The Office of the Inspectorate did an amazing job of distilling a huge and complex report into the points its readers care about most.

The judges highlighted the report’s simple structure, with short, focused paragraphs and simple, direct sentences. The tone was described as beautifully done — respectful, humanising, and professional. It treats a vulnerable audience with dignity, which the judges felt was exactly what was needed for this important topic.

Media statement

The Office of the Inspectorate is thrilled to be recognised for this year’s Best Plain Language Document — Public Sector.

When the Inspectorate released a thematic report about people aged under 25 in prison, we felt it was important to share this information in a way that young people could easily understand.

While our thematic report is nearly 250 pages long, our quick read summary is four pages long, written in Plain Language and has been graphically designed be an engaging read. It highlights the views and quotes of young people.

The quick read summary distils key findings from the full report, which explores the experiences of young adults and young people in prison, highlighting areas for improvement in care, rehabilitation and reintegration.

For our thematic report, an Inspectorate team visited all 18 prisons in New Zealand and spoke with 206 young people (of the approximately 800 young people in prison at that time). We wanted the young people who contributed to have the opportunity to read the final report, but we also knew that many young people in prison have low levels of literacy and poor education.

After publication, we sent copies of the quick read summary to all prison libraries so young people across the prison network could find out about our report. Copies of the full report were also sent to prison libraries.

Our quick read summary has been so well received that we are now creating these documents for all our prison inspection reports and will do so for our other thematic reports.

We are proud to have been a finalist for the Best Plain Language Document — Public Sector, and we are proud to have created a document that speaks directly to the people it is about.

The quick read summary is available on the Inspectorate’s website.

Janis Adair
Chief Inspector
Office of the Inspectorate