Mainstream media catching up with TDBs criticism again as they stumble across the point that the Waikeria prison will be double bunked…
Double-bunking booed in Waikeria Prison expansion plan
Double-bunking in cells could increase the risk of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and reduce rehabilitation opportunities at Waikeria Prison, a cabinet paper says.Room sharing badly impacts inmates’ health, reduces rehabilitation opportunities, moves prisoners away from normalisation and can mean upping staff ratios, according to a paper Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis presented to cabinet before the Waikeria Prison plan was signed off.
Yet half of the cells at the new Waikeria Prison facility will be double-bunked – in other words, two thirds of prisoners will share a cell.
…you can either read it here first or wait 3 weeks for the mainstream media to catch up.
If the double bunked element is shocking the media, wait util someone in the news room stops following their twitter account for news stories and realises that we are getting 500 beds for $750m when the original plan was a billion for 2500 beds.
Here is the naked truth.
We have thrown a lot of men and women into a barely functioning, violent, over crowded, double bunked prison system that results in 60% of those released reoffending within 2 years.
Our punitive law and order approach is counterproductive, it is eye-wateringly expensive while being grotesquely under-resourced and it can’t create environments where damaged men and woman can be healed, fixed and become functioning members of our society.
The anger within NZ culture at criminals, an anger whipped up by those harvesting victim pain and manipulated by politicians peddling get tough on crime rhetoric, doesn’t want to hear about creating healing environments, they want suffering. So blinded by fear and fury, many forget the loss of liberty is the punishment.
Labour are attempting to reform the prison industry and if they had built the mega prison, they would have made much of that reform talk look bankrupt to their activist base. The new Government are already finding a lack of traction in getting policy implemented is making them look bad in the eyes of their own voting block so decision rather than hesitancy is becoming the deciding factor.
To minimise the prison, the new Government are committing to a build that will still cost $750m rather than 1billion for only a quarter of the beds.
What the new Government should have done, and what I recommended, was a 21st century prison, one that took into account the need for an environment that is safe and healing rather than punitive.
That would have taken courage and vision.
This 500 double bunked mini prison will become over crowded and with a mere 100 beds for mental health, it’s not nearly big enough to do anything meaningful.
So at almost the same cost as the original mega prison, we have a mini one that won’t and can’t do anything to change the culture.
Labour should have thought big rather than this frightened minimisation.
Another home goal by a Government who seem to think their problem is a lack of ‘gender intelligence‘ in selling their ideas, and not basic strategic competence. Â Isn’t it time someone called back in Matt McCarten? Hasn’t he been punished enough and isn’t this incompetence starting to hurt?
“up to 87% of prisoners are unemployed before prison”
Another reason for the reinstatement of a 21st Century MoW before any more prisons are built. I am sure Matt would agree.
“if they had built the mega prison, they would have made much of that reform talk look bankrupt to their activist base”…but i doubt any of this is being done in the name of the ‘activist base’.
The activist base realises these policies mean double bunking, they also realise that the cells are too small.
These policies and announcements, like many Labour policies, are designed to keep Labours targeted voter the, ‘middle nzer’, feel like ‘something’s being done’ to help the great unwashed, and that ‘things are better than under National’, thereby assuaging any guilt or concerns over a failing social and economic system.
Meanwhile Ma and Pa voter can keep focused on their renovations, property values, their rental income and free study for young Thomas and Olivia.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/104702569/governments-new-doublebunked-prison-cells-at-waikeria-do-not-meet-international-standards
A FULL EMPLOYMENT policy doesn’t mean, a 4.5% unemployment rate is called full employment. A Full Employment Policy means every last person needing a job is given a job with reasonable pay.
Then when the Minister of Employment (why not Labour?) is asked how many unemployed people in the country he can proudly state the figure. It would be 163 or some figure like that.
Watch the crime and incarceration rates fall with a Real Full Employment Policy.
who you bunk up with has nothing to do with what is in your heart and if you are filled with evil then nothing will stop re-offending. get off the grass bomber.
If it feels true then it must be true right?
What do researchers know about this subject anyway?
There is another unanswered question.
The most recent prison built was at Wiri where approximately 1000 men are housed in a largely high security environment. It was also funded via a PPP. The capital cost was approximately $250m so how is the new Waikeria prison costing $750m?
I acknowledge being totally unqualified to judge one way or another on this issue, regarding what works best for inmates’ safety and general psychology. I’m inclined to consider the possibility that sharing a living space may in at least some cases be beneficial to their state of mind and social rehabilitation, but I expect the conclusion that its more likely detrimental to the desired outcome is presumably based on empirical data. Seemed to work well on Porridge though.
We are being fleeced. The true criminals apparently built the place.
Yes Martyn/TDB do a great job raising important issues confronting us. Pity MCMURPHY’s savage approach to incarceration is still held by many.
There is obviously a correlation with imprisonment and unemployment, therein lies your answer ?
Haha, ‘free speech’?
Not that much here on TDB, given my objective comment on Matt was not published.
Until there are practical and comprehensive answers to some very basic questions this is going to stay sticky.
Which system of education will effectively deal with migratory families so the kids get continuity?
Have we yet arrived at a working approximation of a NATIONAL culture – values, morals, stance – regardless of ethnicity? So that everyone is free to honour and use the culture of forebears and ancestors while still abiding by the ways of the land. What you give and what you gain as a citizen.
Providing work training (and family-making training) for ALL young people – and ensuring that only a vanishly-small number of people under the age of twenty five is unemployed. That includes people with physical, mental and social disabilities.
Sticking with the fizzy kids – the risk takers, the bubblies, the rebellious – so there’s someone to go home to. Someone who’ll listen and provide other ways to ‘let the pup off the lead’.
Make it easy to have a second, third, fifth, tenth chance to learn, settle, contribute.
Make better gangs. Much better gangs. They’re a useful construct and they work when prisons, boot camps, social pressures haven’t a hope.
Can we? Maybe.
[…] Prisons make people worse […]
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