Prison conditions

27 comments on “Prison conditions ”

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1. Sacha 1

   4 January 2021 at 2:21 pm

   Corrections is being very slippery with the words it is using and feeding to the Minister – that these particular prisoners did not make complaints does not mean none were made.

   As I posted on the other thread, from p38 of that Ombudsman's report:

   In my survey, 77 percent of respondents said they did not have faith in the complaints process. Seventy-eight percent of survey respondents reported they did not feel complaints were dealt with promptly, and 75 percent did not feel they were dealt with fairly.
   • lprent 1.1

     4 January 2021 at 2:47 pm

     That was my impression as well. It just reeks of a PR cover-up and flips me from merely irritated to deeply suspicious.

     I think that a deep external enquiry not only into this particular event but also into the institutional processes that mean that inmates (and their lawyers) aren't complaining is in order.

     The conditions described for that wing of the prison look appalling.
     • Sacha 1.1.1

       4 January 2021 at 3:03 pm

       Because the replacement prison is being built, I imagine the usual bureaucratic inertia about fixing the old one applies.

       However it would be good change management to fund tangible improvements there in the meantime, including building better trust and communication before the muster is shifted. Budget needs to be added accordingly. Guess journalists and MPs can ask the right questions about that.

       What does this say more broadly about how seriously Corrections takes the Ombudsman's statutory role in the system if they believe they can thumb their nose at repeated findings of fault?
       • lprent 1.1.1.1

         4 January 2021 at 3:21 pm

         However it would be good change management to fund tangible improvements there in the meantime, ….

         Guess journalists and MPs can ask the right questions about that.

         More likely they'll do what they did and are still doing with things like the rolling disaster that is children in care from the 1950s onwards. Write a few stories about it, do some minor grandstanding, and eventually wind up with a royal commission – without ever really getting to grip with the issue.

         That appears to have been another systematic case of complaints being ignored and 'lost'. FFS the royal commission into abuse in care has problems even finding out how many kids were in care at any point in time or where they were. Not only for stuff in the past but even quite recently.

         What does this say more broadly about how seriously Corrections takes the Ombudsman's statutory role in the system if they believe they can thumb their nose at repeated findings of fault?

         What it says is that the Ombudsman roles in NZ including the IPA need more teeth. More resources and a clearer ability to lay charges against individuals inside the states structures for a lack of responsibility for their sustained dereliction of duty – including up to the heads and former heads of the public service.
2. Sacha 2

   4 January 2021 at 2:22 pm

   "We have got this big washing machine where people are going in dirty and coming out extremely dirty.”

   How apt.
3. Forget now 3

   4 January 2021 at 2:24 pm

   Back when I was in prison, before 2000, there was already a fair bit of crowding and not a lot of rehabilitation. Especially in the older places like the Victorian bricks of the old (now closed) Dunedin prison.

   Slang term for the place was; "the monster factory", which may no longer be current, but none the less accurate for that.
   • lprent 3.1

     4 January 2021 at 3:04 pm

     While the old Victorian prisons did look like a structural hellholes the whole intent of replacing them was to relieve over crowding so more rehab could take place. That was why they were funded.

     Somehow idiots like Judith Collins seemed to think that it was just a excuse to allow them to warehouse more people.

     This is the chart of prisoners per 100k population two decades of continuous growth due to stupid populist legislation driven by knee-jerk voters. You can't see anything similar going on with increasing resources to deal with the incarceration rate. Only with building more prisons to (at best) maintain the over crowded state.

     

     Labour is just as complicit. Those sharp rises in the mid-2000s were a direct result of the legislative changes being done then in response to the lazy calls for lock-em up and throw away the key morons.
     • Forget now 3.1.1

       4 January 2021 at 4:59 pm

       It'd be interesting to see the prison population rate against the criminal offences for the same time period. The crime rate was trending down last I heard, certainly no explosion of lawlessnesss that might explain those prisoning rate!

       Also it's not just prisoners who get institutionalized, guards too; get unhealthy in an unhealthy environment. Surely that's an issue that a Labour party can get behind, even if they don't care (to be seen to care) for prisoners themselves.

       Prisoners told investigators that if they didn't take part in the fight clubs, they would be pack-attacked by gang members later… allegations of savage attacks by gangs, beatings of prisoners by staff, and the deliberate outing of child sex offenders by prison staff to the general prison population.

       Prison staff also told the investigators the fight clubs were taking place when there weren't enough staff on the wings.

       "It was basically a jungle," said Labour Party corrections spokesperson Kelvin Davis.

       He said Corrections did nothing about it.

       "The report focused on the making sure that the staff weren't doing anything illegal, but they totally ignore the fact that prisoners were getting their heads punched in. I just think it's institutional neglect."

       https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/317637/prison-fight-clubs-'it-was-basically-a-jungle'

       So the concept of institutional neglect is not new to the current Minister for Corrections. Why is anyone taking anything Corrections says at face value?
4. gsays 4

   4 January 2021 at 3:17 pm

   Michael Moore looked at Norwegian prisons in his film Where to Invade Next?

   A stark contrast to our attitudes and systems.

   For those that prefer reading, this is from a review of the film in The Intercept:

   "The Norwegian philosophy is to create a normal environment with as few external controls as possible so that when prisoners get out, they know how to control themselves. It works so well that Norway has one of the world’s lowest murder rates, and its recidivism rate is about 20 percent, two to three times lower than in the U.S. (Moore also visits a standard Norwegian maximum security prison that’s less spa-like but totally free of the brutality and spiritual darkness of U.S. prisons.)”

   https://theintercept.com/2016/02/10/where-to-invade-next-is-the-most-subversive-movie-michael-moore-has-ever-made/

   Decriminalising cannabis would have a desirable impact on the numbers incarcerated.

   I recall reading somewhere, the term 'muster' is part of the 'unconscious bias' we tend to take about others in prison. All part of de-humanising them.
   • Sacha 4.1

     4 January 2021 at 4:00 pm

     Thank you for that last point. Oops.
   • Morrissey 4.2

     4 January 2021 at 4:12 pm

     ….the term 'muster' is part of the 'unconscious bias' we tend to take about others in prison.

     There's nothing unconscious or unwitting in the brutal and derogatory language used about prisoners by the likes of Ruth Money, the National Party, the ACT cult, and their megaphones in the media.

     Th 4 o'clock "news" bulletin on RNZ National today began: "The National Party says…."
     • Andy 4.2.1

       4 January 2021 at 9:58 pm

       Who the hell is Ruth Money? What's her position?
       • Sacha 4.2.1.1

         4 January 2021 at 10:29 pm

         Supine.
   • mac1 4.3

     4 January 2021 at 5:10 pm

     The word muster has meanings to do with the military, with livestock and zoology. The bias shown might be by the listener rather than the user. I've always read it with its meaning of an assembly of a unit of men from whence we get the phrase 'to pass muster'. Not to argue that prisoners don't get a bias. I've done nine 'lags' in 3 separate prisons, each of three days, running AVP courses, meeting well over 100 men. That is what they were- men.
5. Stuart Munro 5

   4 January 2021 at 4:09 pm

   Although the punitive approach of some ministers has doubtless made things worse, it must be said that a massive increase in prison populations is pretty much what you would expect from a country with the fastest growing inequality in the OECD.
6. RedLogix 6

   4 January 2021 at 9:56 pm

   Lynn

   If you want to talk prison reform, then I'm totally with you. You know that.

   But I have one simple question; do you think prisoners should riot in order to get what they want?
   • McFlock 6.1

     4 January 2021 at 10:08 pm

     Basic humane living conditions were not being supplied.

     This was pointed out by prisoners and third parties. Nothing was done.

     That leaves legal action as next item in the reasonable escalation of response, but not every prisoner is Arthur Taylor. Frankly, escalating to property damage shows some restraint.
     • RedLogix 6.1.1

       4 January 2021 at 10:21 pm

       So your answer is yes? Is that correct?

       If you were a staff member working in a prison how would you feel about this messaging.
       • McFlock 6.1.1.1

         4 January 2021 at 10:25 pm

         I like to think I'd already be on strike rather than be party to human rights abuses. But I understand that inhuman places dehumanise anyone who comes into contact with them.
         • iwantapony 6.1.1.1.1

           4 January 2021 at 10:56 pm

           Hear hear, McFlock.

           The conditions stated would also have a significant impact on the mental health of prison staff, long before prisoners took action.
         • WeTheBleeple 6.1.1.1.2

           5 January 2021 at 8:25 am

           Well said McFlock. The acceptance of ill treatment of our fellows is not acceptable in any society claiming to be free and fair.

           I've been to Waikeria. I was stuck in a remand yard with 18 mobsters at the age of 15. It was a run down shithole then – in 1982. I was double bunked with a punch drunk idiot, had no access to books, canteen or due process.
           • WeTheBleeple 6.1.1.1.2.1

             5 January 2021 at 8:40 am

             How did I get there? Well, age 14 I was wagging school (to go to the library and read as school had zero challenge for me). So they locked me up. In the boys home I met many state wards who were already completely screwed over and jaded via state care.

             One of the lads escaped after my release and came to live in our dog kennel. Yes, that's right, he preferred to live in the dog kennel than go back there.

             Unknown to me he was a one man crime wave, and already a hard drug user. So he was knocking off chemists and houses while he stayed. I got pulled in as an 'accomplice' when I was actually a naive kid fresh to the city from a small village, and trying to make friends. ASD, PTSD – desperately trying to make friends. He pinched stuff with me present, I objected, he persisted, I was thus an accomplice in three acts of petty theft. He had 57 charges most of them serious.

             In his family three kids sent to state care. Results – two boys became recidivist criminal junkies, one girl a prostitute junkie. State 'care'.

             I turned 15, and got sent to Waikeria. Guess how well that 'helped'.
             • Sacha …

               5 January 2021 at 9:00 am

               Heck. Sorry to hear that.
       • lprent 6.1.1.2

         5 January 2021 at 12:33 am

         Perhaps Corrections should look at the complaints process from staff. Because it looks like a fucking dangerous place to be with unhappy prisoners.

         I suspect that when a public enquiry goes down that we will find repeated historic ignored warnings and complaints from staff.

         Reading the reports from the ombudsman I am pretty sure that some of the very specific information in the reports came from them.

         Have you read the last ombudsman report yet? It is the last of a series.
   • lprent 6.2

     5 January 2021 at 12:27 am

     If you have approx 80% of prisoners in that prison (including low security) saying that they don't think that the complaints process does anything – would you consider that it is a viable working process? Now have a look at the photos of the high security section and tell me that even the guards couldn't have realized that was a sustainable situation..

     Now imagine that problem with the complaints has been going on for as long is apparent when looking at the various public reports on that prison.

     Blaming the inmates for not following a ineffective and viewed as useless process is just stupid. To try to divert attention from that failure in the system amounts to being criminal.

     By the look of the comments from corrections it seems like corrections have given up on the complaints process long ago. Instead they were expecting that the ombudsman system was covering their arses.

     Any rational organisation doesn't ignore complaints. They either deal with them or expect to lose clients. In the case of Corrections they will eventually lose lives when the inevitable explosion happens.

     This isn't exactly rocket science. Even an engineer knows to measure stress.
7. Lachlan 7

   5 January 2021 at 8:49 am

   Why does the left always present themselves as nasty people with a chip on their shoulder to get their message out?

   Let's actually look at the facts now, should we?

   1. National had a far less prison population increase rate compared to the Clark government before it (even shown by one of the graphs a labourite here posted).
   2. National foresaw this issues and planned a new prison to be built with 1500 more beds which would be open now but who canceled it and further funding for prisons? Labour. Hmm. Labour has done nothing since..
   3. National had the lowest re-offending rates in the 10 years prior.

   [lprent: I have answered this comment as it did actually raise some points. The remainder of your astroturf has been swept to spam as it

   1. doesn’t offer any information of items of debate
   2. is simply snarky
   3. makes assertions of fact without backing them with links or soure
   4. looks like astroturfing.

   This site as the policy explains is for robust debate. It isn’t there for idiots to spam. Learn to debate with actual figures rather than myths, clear opinions rather than unsubstantiated (and probably false) assertions of fact.

   We run a policy that new commenters have their first comments going to probation. A moderator has to allow at least one comment to be published and the probation released. This allows bots, trolls, and idiots to be culled. In your case I haven’t released the probation so your comments will keep going to moderation. You have to convince by the content of your comment that you’re worth having around. The criteria is robust debate. So far you haven’t displayed any ability in that direction.

   ]
   • lprent 7.1

     5 January 2021 at 9:30 am

     National had a far less prison population increase rate compared to the Clark government before it (even shown by one of the graphs a labourite here posted).

     Perhaps you should read the actual post – where I point that out as well. National, being a pack of lazy fools just blindly followed a good vote catcher to the levels of stupidity (one of their characteristic hallmarks).

     Obviously you can sort of read a graph. However you examined the actual numbers, you’d see it is on 2 yearly basis. So your number manages to either miss the last year of the Key government 2017 or include the work of the Ardern government after National lost the government benches.

     2000 148/100k
     2008 182/100k = additional ~34/100k under Clark govt
     2018 214/100k = additional ~32/100k under Key govt (but includes Arden govt reduction at end of 2017 and first half of 2018)
     2020 188/100k = reduction ~26/100k under Ardern government

     If you dug deeper you’d find that the level was higher than 214 in 2017 in the last year of the Key government. The Ardern government had reduced it pretty fast.

     Basically if you want to prove your contention, then I suggest you stop trying to lie with statistics (you’re pretty bad at it) and bring your own evidence to the table.

     Try the table and sources at https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/new-zealand

     National foresaw this issues and planned a new prison to be built with 1500 more beds which would be open now

     Basically you don’t need a prison to be built when the policy is to reduce prison population by removing unnecessary and expensive incarceration. Warehousing people just because Phil Goff or Judith Collins can look tough on crime isn’t smart – it is just stupid and expensive.

     National had the lowest re-offending rates in the 10 years prior.

     So did every country in western world. It is called demographic movement. It is what happens when a population ages. You also get a lot less first time offenders even when you measure it on 100k bounds.

     However despite significantly levels of demographic re-offending and less first time offenders, National managed to grow the total population and the % incarcerated.

     How did they do that – by stupid sentencing and bail policies for that idiot of politics Judith Collins that caused longer prison time. Remand prisoners spent up to a year getting to trial. Sentenced prisoners got longer sentences.

     Your proud claim about a reduction in is largely because offenders spent more time in jail – therefore increasing the rotation time between offences. I’d have to dig out the analysis of a paper I read on it. But if you account for the extra jail time, all that happened was the reoffending rate remained similar. That in effect is an white collar accounting fraud.

     But of course people like you like being lied to and are obviously too lazy to think things through.

     Why does the left always present themselves as nasty people with a chip on their shoulder to get their message out?

     Why do the lazy myth believing people on the right always whine about how they are hard done by when less lazy people point out the hard facts to them?

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