Former Parole Board chairman Sir Ronald Young talks murders, regrets and honesty

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Photo: NZ Herald / Annaleise Shortland

Sir Ronald Young is a former chief judge of the district court, Justice of the High Court and was the chairman of the Parole Board for seven years. He's been the gatekeeper who decides whether some of the country's most notorious offenders can be released from prison early, albeit to spend the rest of their lives under strict supervision. Sir Ron speaks to Jeremy Wilkinson about sitting face to face with murderers, the strategies the board uses to test offenders, and the things that play on his conscience.

Sir Ron Young has probably spoken to more murderers face to face than anyone else in New Zealand.

"I've talked to far more murderers in the seven years that I've been on the board than I ever sentenced in the High Court," he tells NZME.

"And I've talked to them in a personal way. When you sentence someone, it's not a personal event; the judge sits a long way away from the defendant and you're talking not just to him or her, but also to the community, the prosecution and defence lawyers and the families and the victims.

"In parole, you're sitting at the same level as the offender, maybe 10-15ft from them, and talking to them in a very personal way. In that sense, it's a much more personal engagement than you ever get in the courts."

It's part of the reason he considers his time at the helm of the New Zealand Parole Board as being harder than the eight years he spent as Chief District Court Judge, or even the 15 years he served as a justice of the High Court.

In those roles, he saw a fraction of the violent offenders he had seen in his seven-year tenure on the board, and in some ways is the exact opposite of what he was doing as a judge.

In his former roles, he was sending offenders to prison, whereas for the better part of the past decade, he has been in charge of deciding whether they can be released.

As Sir Ron describes it, it's "an impossible job".

"I guess at the core what you're trying to do is assess human conduct and predict it, and that's notoriously difficult," he says.

"People will do crazy stuff and unpredictable stuff all the time.

"You're thinking, 'if I make a mistake there could be catastrophic consequences' … but you can't let that mean your de