Speaker 1: Kyota at Chelsea Daniels here, host of the Front Page.
Speaker 1: We're taking away breakover summer, but to help build the gap,
Speaker 1: we're re issuing some of our most significant episodes of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five on behalf of the Front Page team.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and we look forward to being back
Speaker 1: with you on January twelfth, twenty twenty six. Kiyota, I'm
Speaker 1: Chelsea Daniels, and this is the Front Page, a daily
Speaker 1: podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The Corrections Association
Speaker 1: says New Zealand's prisons are in crisis. Last year saw
Speaker 1: record breaking numbers of assaults on staff, almost double what
Speaker 1: they were just seven years ago. There were also more
Speaker 1: than fifteen hundred prisoner on prisoner attacks, the highest annual
Speaker 1: figure on record. All of this comes with overcrowding, tight
Speaker 1: budgets and a growing gang and meth problem. Today on
Speaker 1: the Front Page ends at Herald, Senior reporter Derek Chang
Speaker 1: is with us to dive into the numbers. So, Derek,
Speaker 1: when you began looking into Correction's latest prison assault data,
Speaker 1: what stood out to you?
Speaker 2: Well, the figures are the highest on record, and obviously
Speaker 2: the prison population fluctuates and the number of prison offices fluctuates.
Speaker 2: At the moment, the prison population is an all time high.
Speaker 2: It's just under teny nine hundred, and the last time
Speaker 2: it was more or less the same population number was
Speaker 2: back in March twenty eighteen. So it's interesting to compare
Speaker 2: the numbers. So I mean corrections keeps the starter. It's
Speaker 2: prisoner on prisoner assaults and prisoner on staff assaults. So
Speaker 2: in the last year, which is twenty four twenty five,
Speaker 2: were almost sixteen hundred prisoner prisoner assaults, and there were
Speaker 2: almost eleven hundred prisoner staff assaults. And if you compare
Speaker 2: that to the twenty seven eighteen year, which was when
Speaker 2: the prison population was almost just as high, there are
Speaker 2: almost twice as many prisoner staff assaults now or in
Speaker 2: the latest year than then. And there's I think it's
Speaker 2: a twenty eight percent increase in the number of prisoner
Speaker 2: prisoner assaults.
Speaker 1: Is this surge mainly about more violence or more reporting
Speaker 1: of small incidents? Do you think?
Speaker 2: Well, if you break the numbers down, the corrections data
Speaker 2: is based on serious assault, non serious assault, and no
Speaker 2: injury assault. So serious assault essentially is something that requires
Speaker 2: a visit to the hospital, or is there to a
Speaker 2: police charge, so the bar is reasonably high. And then
Speaker 2: you have a non serious assault, which is which is
Speaker 2: an injury, which which hasn't led to a hospital visit
Speaker 2: or a police charge. And then you have a no
Speaker 2: injury assault like you know, a shove or I throw
Speaker 2: something at you or something like that, something small that
Speaker 2: doesn't result an injury. So the numbers are actually quite
Speaker 2: stable with serious assaults, and in fact they went down
Speaker 2: slightly in the last year compared to the previous year.
Speaker 2: The majority of the increase is definitely from non serious
Speaker 2: and no injury assaults, and correction is also provided like
Speaker 2: a breakdown per prison, so it's interesting to look at
Speaker 2: each prison, although I mean, there are so many factors
Speaker 2: involved in what happens and how an assault comes to
Speaker 2: be and whether it's recorded in all those things. Corrections
Speaker 2: has also said that there's definitely been a bigger focus
Speaker 2: on reporting and that may explain some of the increase
Speaker 2: in the numbers.
Speaker 1: You mentioned. The rising prison population is becoming more complex
Speaker 1: with higher proportions of remand prisoners. You've got gang affiliated
Speaker 1: in mates and math uses as well. How central is
Speaker 1: this complexity, this cocktail to the rise of assaults.
Speaker 2: Well, Corrections definitely thinks that the complexity of the prison
Speaker 2: population has led to increasing chances of violence. People who
Speaker 2: have a history of heavy matthews who then go to
Speaker 2: prison are more likely to be involved in violence. There's
Speaker 2: I think Corrections themselves referred to it as kind of
Speaker 2: like pack beatings that happen in prison, and they tend
Speaker 2: to be gang related. So if there are more gang
Speaker 2: members in prisons, then there tend to be those kinds
Speaker 2: of assaults. Just looking at the data as well, there's
Speaker 2: more Category three sentences coming through the courts, and they
Speaker 2: are the more serious offenses, punishable by at least two
Speaker 2: years in prison. There is definitely a truth about the
Speaker 2: complexity of the average prisoner, and I guess that would
Speaker 2: mean that your average prisoner is more likely to end
Speaker 2: up in these assult figures.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really surprise us, though, does it, that prisoner
Speaker 1: numbers have gone up because nationals, how tough on crime,
Speaker 1: stants actually promised more people in prisons.
Speaker 2: That's right, And there's a number of policies there. There's
Speaker 2: the center single forms, there's a return of three strikes,
Speaker 2: there's the ending of the section twenty seven reports for
Speaker 2: state funding. All of these are projected to mean a
Speaker 2: prison population that's three thousand higher in ten years time
Speaker 2: than without those policies. Money for corrections is based on
Speaker 2: these forecasts, right, So in this year's budget, the government
Speaker 2: set aside a certain amount of money for corrections to manage,
Speaker 2: and it's based on a forecast. The forecast was for
Speaker 2: I think hundred and sixty by June next year. The
Speaker 2: forecast back then, I mean was basically way out. Because
Speaker 2: we're currently at tand one hundred and sixty, nine months
Speaker 2: ahead of schedule, and that basically means that as the
Speaker 2: prison population grows, which it's expected to, then the corrections
Speaker 2: budget per prisoner is shrinking unless they ask for more money,
Speaker 2: which they haven't. So corrections is just managing with the
Speaker 2: baseline and it's just increasingly harder as the prison population grows,
Speaker 2: the complexity of the prisoners coming in grows. They were
Speaker 2: basically in a bit of a staffing crisis a few
Speaker 2: years ago because the prison population was shooting up since
Speaker 2: the start of twenty twenty two, and then they're just
Speaker 2: playing catch up with frontline staff. That made a big
Speaker 2: recruitment drive last year and they've halved the attrition rate,
Speaker 2: which is staff turnover rate, so they're actually at a
Speaker 2: better position than they have been, but there are still
Speaker 2: two hundred and seventy seven officers corrections officers short of
Speaker 2: where they want to be. And Creations describes this, and
Speaker 2: there's a beautiful managerial phrase, suboptimal custodial frontline resilience, which
Speaker 2: basically means that not operating with the ideal level of
Speaker 2: staff and that really puts the staff under pressure. I
Speaker 2: should also add that that this is nothing new for Corrections,
Speaker 2: Like the forecast that was based for the prisoner forecast
Speaker 2: that was used on the basis for funding for budget
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four was also way below the numbers that
Speaker 2: it rigally came out. So they've been doing this for
Speaker 2: a while. And how long they can do it for
Speaker 2: is anyone's guess, but it's certainly it's certainly suboptimal. In
Speaker 2: Correction's own.
Speaker 1: To him, well, they're constantly playing catch up pay and
Speaker 1: I'm never calling anything bad again. I'm going to be
Speaker 1: calling it suboptimal from now on.
Speaker 3: The best we've ever been in the last eight years
Speaker 3: in terms of staff. We're in the best position we
Speaker 3: have been in eight years. It's not subpoptible at all.
Speaker 3: It's not the Christians saying that they're suboptimal there saying
Speaker 3: that Christians are the best place of the being. Like
Speaker 3: I said, for eight years, there's an incoming government. They
Speaker 3: started a new recruiting campaign that's been extremely successful. We've
Speaker 3: got a massive popeline of people wanting to join and
Speaker 3: become Creach suss as. We've got to other sevinty officers
Speaker 3: been trained and ready to deployed at the moment.
Speaker 1: You also bring up double bunking, which has become an
Speaker 1: issue and it's even been linked to a prisoner killing
Speaker 1: his cell mate. Do I experts see double bunking as
Speaker 1: an unavoidable necessity or a policy failure that's fueling that violence.
Speaker 2: Well, it probably depends on who you ask. I remember
Speaker 2: double bunking was brought in I think in twenty ten
Speaker 2: or twenty eleven under the previous National government. I was
Speaker 2: actually part of a cohorter journalists that were taken to
Speaker 2: Ramattaka prison to sample the double bunking and you know,
Speaker 2: the sales were barely roomy. They were really comfortable also,
Speaker 2: you know, more centuring and with among them old members,
Speaker 2: so it wasn't particularly dangerous, but double bunking has been
Speaker 2: quite controversial. It's been increasingly used. I should say that
Speaker 2: there's no current sort of capacity crisis because there's a
Speaker 2: there was a recent addition to II carrier, so now
Speaker 2: the current capacity is over twelve thousand, but forty five
Speaker 2: percent of the prison population is now double bunked, so
Speaker 2: that's basically five thousand prisoners. It's a lot, right, And
Speaker 2: if we didn't have dumble bunking, then we wouldn't have capacity.
Speaker 2: So it is a necessity. Prisoners are screen before they
Speaker 2: put in a double bunk, but obviously that's not for
Speaker 2: proof and as the Correction of the Association President Vluidipacy
Speaker 2: was saying earlier this week, that creates violence, that creates tensions.
Speaker 2: We've got some optimal sub optimal staffing. So again not
Speaker 2: not not great. Assaults are going up and you know
Speaker 2: there's no sort of there's no sort of reprieve coming.
Speaker 1: You know, Mitchell said about frontline staffing levels.
Speaker 2: He says things are going great, and obviously it's a
Speaker 2: political perspective, but it's not entirely untrue because there was
Speaker 2: much more of a staffing crisis a few years ago,
Speaker 2: and they are in a much better position, but obviously
Speaker 2: they would like to have more, hundreds more in fact,
Speaker 2: and you know, kind of both perspectives are correct. Things
Speaker 2: are better than they used to be, but they're still
Speaker 2: at such a level where it creates more risk for
Speaker 2: the staff and the staff for you know, you got
Speaker 2: to feel for them because they can only have the
Speaker 2: numbers that Corrections provides, which is based on government budgets.
Speaker 2: But they are on the front line. They deal with
Speaker 2: all of the complexities of that happen behind bars. And
Speaker 2: that's saying that there are so few staff now that
Speaker 2: there's a whole bunch of vacant shifts that aren't being filled.
Speaker 2: Correction says that, you know, that's not because there's not
Speaker 2: enough staff. It's because often for a sick leave or
Speaker 2: some unforseeeable leave, and then the decision is made not
Speaker 2: to bring more people in because it can be the
Speaker 2: prison can be safely managed as it is. But the
Speaker 2: union says, you know, it puts us more in danger,
Speaker 2: it was there more in danger. It creates more tension
Speaker 2: in the behind bars, and you know those and the
Speaker 2: risks are heightened.
Speaker 1: I mean, the union says and has told you that
Speaker 1: it's already a crisis, but the Minister says it isn't.
Speaker 1: Who do you reckon is closer to the truth.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean they have different perspectives, right, I mean
Speaker 2: the Corrections Association they represent the front line staff. They
Speaker 2: don't want to see their front line staff and danger.
Speaker 2: Obviously there's going to be some danger because it's just
Speaker 2: the inherent nature of the job. They want to avoid
Speaker 2: that as much as possible. Part of that is having
Speaker 2: proper levels. Part is that that is minimizing the vacon shifts.
Speaker 2: And the Minister, he backs the staff and he backs Corrections,
Speaker 2: but he's also kind of hamstrung because you know it's
Speaker 2: the finance minister who decides how much money they get.
Speaker 2: Corrections just deals with the back end of the justice pipeline.
Speaker 2: You know how many people go there isn't up to corrections.
Speaker 2: They just have to manage it. It's all about crime
Speaker 2: and police and charges and court timeliness, and that just
Speaker 2: piles it all up. At the Corrections end the year ago,
Speaker 2: You've only got this mush money. You've only got this
Speaker 2: mush staff. Good luck to you.
Speaker 1: Well, has Corrections given any indication of any new funding
Speaker 1: requests for next year.
Speaker 2: Well, in budget twenty twenty five they asked for attack contingency,
Speaker 2: which is basically, we want this money which the government
Speaker 2: gave them to manage our forecast, which as I said earlier,
Speaker 2: has been met nine months ahere to forecast. And the
Speaker 2: attack contingency is basically, if you can give us this
Speaker 2: extra money, you can put it on the shelf. It's
Speaker 2: just for us in case there are more prisoners than
Speaker 2: the forecast number, and that would be great because then
Speaker 2: we can just pull it off the shelf if those
Speaker 2: numbers are high than forecast, which they now are. Nikolaulas
Speaker 2: said no, based on Treasury advice. They said, well, in fact,
Speaker 2: I think it's better just to make you ask for
Speaker 2: out of cycle funding they call it. So Corrections has
Speaker 2: not asked for that money. Mark Mitchell told me last
Speaker 2: week that you know, he's ready to support them if
Speaker 2: they need that money. But there's so that there's such
Speaker 2: a fiscal crunch on the government. I mean, they've got
Speaker 2: so little available money and they're squeezing every department for
Speaker 2: every last cent, you know, like they're taking hundreds of
Speaker 2: millions of dollars from foreign tourists for example, which is
Speaker 2: meant to go to tourism and conservation and then just
Speaker 2: kind of squirreling it down over here for us, Thank
Speaker 2: you very much. So it costs one point seven billion
Speaker 2: dollars a year for corrections to manage the prison population,
Speaker 2: so there's all this pressure on them to just do
Speaker 2: everything with the baseline, which is what they're doing so far.
Speaker 2: I just hope that, you know, let's say they really
Speaker 2: need more money because it's because safety is at risk,
Speaker 2: they'll ask for it and the government will give it
Speaker 2: to them.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Derek, You're welcome. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
Speaker 1: about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzid Herald
Speaker 1: dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is produced by
Speaker 1: Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who was also our editor.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in on
Speaker 1: Monday for another look behind the headlines.