‘Grim picture’ of NZ prison system revealed in new report
The discovery that some of Auckland’s most vulnerable prisoners have been locked inside their cells for up to two days at time, for as long as nine months, has alarmed lawyers advocating for the men.
Now the Office of the Inspectorate is calling for changes by Corrections so that inmates at Auckland’s maximum security prison in Paremoremo are not denied their minimum entitlement of one hour of exercise each day.
Corrections said the breaches, which involved 190 men only being allowed out of their cells every second day, were caused by staff shortages in the aftermath of Covid-19 and without them, staff could have been put in harm’s way.
Normally NuZilnders could remain safe in the knowledge that the vast majority of prisoners in NZ prisons are Kiwis and as such are bitches who will tolerate any revenge suffering we dump upon them.
For many NuZilnders, there is a joy and a tingling in their genitalia when they think of the suffering prisoners will face inside prison so we don’t give a shit about how bad the conditions get inside there. The danger with those assumptions is that they don’t acknowledge the fact that there are now huge swathes of 501s inside our prison system and being Australian’s, they won’t pout up with the shit Kiwi prisoners do.
The looming prison riot will be fun and watching NuZilnders struggle to hide the shame of it from global media attention will be worth the wait.
Look, if someone hurt my family our friends, I’d want 5 minutes alone with the person and a baseball bat, I get that terrible harm inflicted on innocent people drives a thirst for righteous revenge, and I get that, but we are talking about actual social policy here and because of the overwhelming power of the State over the individual in a prison environment, we must demand checks and balances and quantifiable outcomes over a thirst for vengeance.
Remember – the prisoner losing their liberty IS the punishment, making prisoners suffer additionally to that punishment is a recipe for social disaster and that’s why we see a 70% re-offense rate within 2 years of prison release!
We don’t want people in prison because the greatest determinate of whether or not a person will go to prison – IS BEING SENT TO PRISON!
We want our Judges to pass justice, not revenge, and giving them more background understanding of the person they are judging plus the flexibility to focus on attempting to find a way for the prisoner to be punished by losing their liberty AND attempting to rehabilitate them so that violent criminality isn’t an ongoing feature of their character.
Judges having the much maligned ‘Cultural Reports’ is exactly the kind of background understanding we want from Judges so that mercy is what the Court is focused on. You can’t get Justice without using mercy, look our underfunded, over crowded, violent and corrupt prison system only manufactures men more damaged than when they went in!
We don’t allow any rehabilitation to any prisoner unless they admit their guilt – seeing as many of those prisoners are on remand and haven’t had their trial yet, why would they admit guilt?
National placed that rule so as to smear dog shit in the prisoners faces before they could gain access to rehabilitation, it was a needless cruelty and ‘respect my authritah’ big dick virtue signalling by National that has created a massive counter productive backlash that sees prisoners serve their entire sentence never admitting their guilt and getting no rehab!
In terms of our overcrowded, violent, underfunded prison system, this is extremely grim reading…
‘Disconnection at all levels’: Ombudsman’s scathing review of Corrections
Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has issued a blistering critique of the Department of Corrections’ top brass, who he says are failing to drive meaningful progress.
Boshier started an investigation into management at Corrections, after the 2020 Waikeria Prison riot. He said it became clear that previous recommendations for change at Corrections had not been actioned, and so investigated management and culture within the department.
“Waikeria was one of many prisons I had inspected over a number of years where despite countless recommendations for change by both me and other oversight agencies, the same issues kept coming up, again and again,” he said.
He said Corrections’ senior leaders knew what needed to be done, but had not ensured any improvements were made to the conditions of prisons.
…we have all the ingredients for a prison riot.
Do you understand what he’s saying here?
He said there needed to be a greater focus on ensuring basic human rights for prisoners, with poor conditions in the prisons making it more dangerous for staff and prisoners as tensions rose.
The living conditions become so squalid that the prisoners will revolt and you will spark prison riots!
That’s what happened at the Waikeria prison riot! The living conditions, even for a prison, became so run down and inoperable that it collapsed.
National, ACT ands NZ First want to plough thousands more people into our broken and dysfunctional Prison Empire with zero costings and no way to fund the enormous spike in the Prison population they are about to embark us upon.
Watch for the calls to privatise the prison system.
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The Purple Propertied Party, both the red and blue halves, are engineering a full takeover and eventual rule by the lumpenproletariat with their neoliberal policies of neocolonial migration and massive inequality.
Castro – Thank you for stating BOTH Labour and National are for the Propertied class.
Correct on all points.
agreed
If a pet owner, owning a dog for instance, kept the pet in the conditions of the prisoners kept in isolation and let out for just an hour could they be carsitigated for animal cruelty?
Oh, certainly. But in modern Western democracies, the equivalent of ‘bread and circuses’- which at least gives the people receiving the bread and circuses something that they want- is ‘stopping _someone else_ from doing something they like doing’.
For the left-liberal wing, that might be ‘banning smoking’. For the right-liberal wing, that might be ‘banning clean water’. Both wings of neoliberalism agree that ‘banning prisoners from seeing the open sky’ is good clean fun.
Usually, you make sensible contributions however I do not see how banning smoking in any way compares to the unfair treatment of prisoners. The way that some prisoners are locked up for most of the time is obviously damaging however stopping smoking is a proven way to improve health. I guess you might protest that it hurts their feelings however we ban or make it difficult for people to do many other activities that could harm them so smoking should not get special treatment just because some people make a profit from supplying it.
There are numerous examples all round the world of how to create a good education system, fix the housing crisis, and run a good prison system. Yet we insist on following models that have failed time and time again. I think the prison system in particular is constantly put in the too hard basket – unless they think they should privatise it. Which is essentially putting it in the too hard basket and making it someone else’s problem.
Labour Greens TPM need to continually state they do not support private prisons, that any private prisons will be de-privatised without compensation if/when those parties come back to power so prisoncorp knows private prisons will be a longterm loss making investment proposition. The idea that prisoncorp lobbyists could push lockemup influence campaigns on judges to enhance business profits is anathema in a “free country”.
Do prisoners get overnight visiting rights when they are settled and working within reasonable value recovery conditions? I have the idea that there is not enough consideration given to human relationship needs including sexual.
What would Celia Lashlie have advised? Also Sir Kim Workman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNWuajOyG3Y
32:30 Full interview with leading prison reformist, Tā Kim Workman
https://www.borrinfoundation.nz/bwb-kim-workman-an-imperfect-justice-new-zealand-speaking-tour/
what’s the betting the additional pet bond will be charged on all renters…cos they MIGHT get a cat
as far as prison riots go prepare now for much pearl clutching by the usual suspects
Better prisons might inspire me to commit a crime. Build it and they will come…