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