Hundreds of criminals could have avoided jail time under a proposal from the Justice and Corrections departments.
The idea was to prioritise home detention instead of incarceration and address the overpopulation of Māori in prison - but it didn't work out like that.
Tommy Doran's come a long way from his teenage years committing petty crime to fund his meth addiction.
"As it does for a lot of people who meth gets their hooks into, it led to my incarceration," he told Newshub.
He's done his jail time and he's now doing an honour's degree in criminology. He said home detention isn't a silver bullet.
"I don't think the solution lies in just taking them out of prison and sticking them in their home where they probably did a lot of their using and offending."
But that's a solution a document - released under the Official Information Act - recommended to the Government.
It was to the Minister of Justice, proposing an increase in the use of home detention to safely reduce the prison population. Judges would prioritise home detention when a short prison sentence - anything under two years - would usually be imposed.
While it would reduce the prison population by around 600 beds after three years, and save $7 million annually, it would actually skew Māori prison stats.
Māori face greater barriers to accessing housing for their home detention and would likely increase Māori overrepresentation in prison because more non-Māori could receive home detention than Māori.
"It's often harder for many Māori, they get discriminated against by not having appropriate housing and the like so that's really… a part of the considerations," said Justice Minister Kiri Allan.
The policy was on its way to Cabinet to be considered but, when Allan took over the portfolio, she threw it on the policy bonfire and on Friday threw her predecessors under the bus.
"This is a proposal that was carried through by previous ministers. It started under Andrew Little and I inherited it after Kris Faafoi."
National's justice spokesperson Paul Goldsmith said it's astounding the proposal was even considered.
"They have a misguided approach to justice where their only priority is to reduce the prison population, irrespective of what's going on in our community.
"We firmly believe the justice priority should be on keeping New Zealanders safe."
For Doran, there are far bigger things to focus on than just tinkering with home detention eligibility.
"More funding needs to be put into safe and sober housing, AOD (alcohol and other drug) programmes, anti-violence programmes," he said.
His list goes on - and from someone who's been in the system, and is studying the system, maybe it's time politicians listen to those like him.
