By SCOTT INGLIS
Inmates at Rangipo Prison's west unit have to flick lights on and off, bang on walls or scream if they have a night-time emergency following the placing of bars over their windows.
Cell panic alarms are to be installed but are at least four weeks away. Until then, the prison management has told inmates to attract attention in case of fire, medical emergency or other crisis after lockup.
The Herald understands some inmates are unhappy, believing this unsafe, but the prison says the bars are staying.
The minimum-security prison, in the central North Island near Turangi, put up to five horizontal bars over each cell window in its 60-bed west unit to stop prisoners escaping.
Three inmates fled the unit last year and one escaped in March through his cell window. The west was the first 60-bed unit of its type and built with light aluminium windows which are easy to escape through.
Prison general manager Reg Christiansen said that the last escape forced him to tighten security.
He believed that inmates were safe despite the absence of panic alarms because a guard had been put on duty in the middle of the unit's compound at night and he checked inmates every hour.
Other units at Rangipo either had a perimeter fence or strong window frames and tougher glass.
Some of these did not have panic alarms but inmates could still break windows if they had to and be contained within the prison.
A perimeter fence for the west unit was too expensive, said Mr Christiansen, and the bars had been made cheaply by prison staff and inmates.
Meanwhile, three inmates at Rangipo have told authorities they are on a hunger strike over cuts to visiting hours.
Cell bars irk inmates
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