62% of Mt Eden prisoners in voluntary segregation, watchdog says many feel unsafe
Staffing shortages, prisoners feeling unsafe and limited rehabilitation activities were among a raft of issues found by an inspection report into the country’s main remand prison for men – Auckland’s Mt Eden Corrections Facility.
The report was released on Wednesday by the Office of the Inspectorate, which is part of Corrections but holds independent oversight of the corrections system.
The announced inspections were conducted throughout October 2024.
Over a six-month review period, 127 prisoners and 142 staff members, union members and service providers were interviewed one-on-one.
At the time of the inspection, the facility had 1100 prisoners, of whom 95 percent were on remand.
It received an average of 600 new prisoners each month. The average length of time people spent on remand nationwide was 89 days – according to Corrections’ estimates from 2023/2024.
The report found the prison had about 506 custodial staff at the time, and was short of about 76 custodial staff.
Many staff had less than two years’ experience working in a New Zealand prison.
Chief Inspector Janis Adair said, partly due to this, “most prisoners were subject to restrictive regimes, spending around 22 hours a day locked in their cells“.
She said while most prisoners and staff reported feeling safe, many did not feel safe in shared mainstream units.
The report found 62 percent of prisoners at the facility were in voluntary segregation – reflecting that many did not feel safe in shared units.
A significant number of prisoners said they had to remain vigilant when out of their cells, and some said they seldom left their cells due to safety concerns, the report said.
The NZ electorate are whipped up by crime porn mainstream media headlines that drain us of any compassion, we just want to make the prisoner suffer.
That’s the way the political right likes it.
That leads to draconian prisons that are underfunded that leads to toxic environments where rehabilitation is a joke.
We treat broken men like animals and then release monsters.
The Government bans Gang Patches but Gang membership goes up.
They make the problem invisible and pretend that’s a solution.
80-90% of Gang members were abused in state care.
Want less gang members? Stop abusing children in State Care.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
I’m back to thinking that it isn’t enough to just see the faults in the country’s systems, politicians, criticise the lack of diligence that the government shows in caring about people. Over time the gummint has compressed into a procurement agency and a real estate office for western and indian nabobs, not to mention the superior Chinese,
French?
What can an ordinary person do to help the prison inmates from a distance? Is there still a group of people acting in their interests? I am sure there is more concern than the one comment that has been noted on the post, but what to be done, and what can we fit into our day. Would some prisoner support group act as a go-between? I don’t mind being a tooth fairy but I can’t offer any close support on top of my other chores such as regularly writing here,reading useful stuff and information from overseas and local sources, Martyn and thoughtful, agitated others. Plus family concerns, health, and a bit of local positivity.
Perhaps helping the way that prisoners think to bring change to their lives and cope with the present would be a help. Would legals trying to help them, limit bad conditions, help get rehabilitation, and habilitation whichever, could proceed if there was some more charitable funding to the good tryers.
And some different angles:
Nietzsche once famously wrote, in one of his notebooks and published in The Will to Power, that failure and pain are richly to be embraced, and even desired –
“To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities – I wish that they should not remain …
22 May 2019
Nietzsche said that failure should be embraced. But he was weird. The Irish Times
https://www.irishtimes.com › life-and-style › people › ni.
And
Friedrich Nietzsche: Morality and Truth
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
* “Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.”
* “When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”
* “What was a lie in the father becomes a conviction in the son.”
More items…15 Feb 2023
Friedrich Nietzsche: Morality and Truth – Library News – Library – News Blog – Fairmont State University Library at …(Marion County, West Virginia USA)
https://library.fairmontstate.edu › news › Friedrich-Nietzs…
And this last applies to us all, and may be why we are stuck here now like bugs pinned to a display board.
Quotes by Confucius (Author of The Analects) Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com › quotes › 15321.Confucius
It is not the failure of others to appreciate your abilities that should trouble you, but rather your failure to appreciate theirs. Confucius.
More insight, pondering stuff? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308093500_The_paradox_of_modern_suffering
Nietzsche was harsh about pity. I think he is taking the pendulum approach; from rejecting an approach, argument, the far opposite is swung to. That in itself implies a near-perfection to be reached at either side of the arc, and I consider that setting inhuman goals for oneself are the source of much unhappiness, but even then there is a need to set goals that reflect acceptance of values that one needs to attain for a compatible life with others and to reach one’s own abilities fully. My opinion is that a balanced view, leaning towards whichever side of the arc suits our inborne talents.
https://www.samwoolfe.com/2022/03/nietzsche-opposition-to-pity-and-comfort.html
Comments are closed.