Prisons locked in crisis

Starting today, a Herald investigation reveals what's going wrong inside New Zealand's bulging jails, as they struggle to cope with record prisoner numbers. Inquiries following a damning Ombudsmen's report in December have found:

* Prisoners are locked in cells with nothing to do for up to 15 hours a day.

* Prison work has been cut officially from 43 per cent to 35 per cent of prisoners in the past three years, and only 19 per cent are actually employed by the prisons' business unit. The others have part-time work such as cleaning their cell blocks or serving the meals.

* Education has been massively disrupted by overcrowding and resulting transfers of prisoners when beds become available around the country. The prison education budget was underspent by 44 per cent last year, and training is forecast to be under-achieved by 33 per cent in 2005-06.

* One of the two specialist drug and alcohol treatment units for male prisoners was closed in September because the staff were judged to lack the required "expertise and collegial support". The remaining 27-bed unit at Waikeria Prison near Kihikihi is booked out until 2008.

* Many prisons lack proper libraries and rely on donations of books from the public or from public libraries.

* Several prisons - including Mt Eden, Wanganui and Wellington - do not have gyms.

* A new "booking" system for prison visits, combined with a doubling of prisoner transfers, has cut visitor numbers, weakening prisoners' links with family members who might motivate them to reform their lives.

The crowding in jails has seen evening lockup time brought back from 8.30pm to 5pm in many of the country's 19 prisons because guard numbers have not kept up with an increase of almost 2000 prisoners since the Sentencing and Parole Acts were tightened in 2002.

Prison chaplains and the Prisoners' Aid and Rehabilitation Society have been forced to cancel evening services and classes run by volunteers from the community because prisoners can no longer attend them.

"Being confined to their cells, they are restricted in what they can do. It's turning them into vegetables," said the society's secretary, John Whitty.

Howard League president Peter Williams, QC, said some young people would be psychologically harmed by being cooped up for so long in cells that are about 3sq m - just big enough for a bed, a small desk on one wall and a stainless steel toilet with an attached handbasin.

Prison Chaplaincy Service manager David Connor said that in some older prisons, such as New Plymouth, some cells are so small that "you can stand in the cell and touch the two walls".

Most prisoners are let out of their cells at 8am, but many have little to do all day.

"You learn how to play canasta or Stop the Bus and gamble for smokes," said one woman who got out of jail last May.

A prison officer who left the service recently said prisoners "just muck around aimlessly in groups. Your Mongrel Mob will be all together planning something and your White Power will all be sitting together working out how to fleece someone."

Chief Ombudsman John Belgrave and two colleagues, in their report last December, said most prisoners had no meaningful occupation and lived lives of "enforced idleness". They recommended that the Corrections Department should provide appropriate programmes and work for all prisoners.

Corrections Department chief executive Barry Matthews said he was negotiating this year's budget with ministers and hoped to provide work for a further 20 per cent of prisoners.

But prisoner numbers were rising and hit a record 7651 this week.

"We are still building flat out, but it's going to be tight by the time we get to June," Mr Matthews said. "Unless we get some sort of respite in terms of the numbers, we are going to be faced with the same issues we have been faced with over the last year."