Staff confront minister over private jails

Corrections workers wear Judith Collins masks during their protest at Parliament against private prisons. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Corrections Minister Judith Collins said yesterday that it would not concern her if privately run prisons paid staff less than those in the public system as they could always return to the public sector.

Ms Collins was responding to a union-led protest at Parliament yesterday, where a corrections officer told of his wage woes working at Auckland Central Remand Prison (ACRP) when it was privately run.

The officer, who did not want to be named, said his pay jumped from $32,000 to $45,000 when the prison moved back to public hands and, within 12 months, had further increased to $64,000 after a round of union-won pay rises.

The president of Corrections Association NZ, Beven Hanlon, told the protest that private prisons would provide inferior service at a greater cost.

He said that when ACRP was run privately from 2000 to 2005, it cost $43,000 to hold each remand prisoner per year, $7000 more than for the other remand prisoners held by the department.

He had asked the minister to guarantee that a private operator would offer the same work conditions as for the union, fearing lower wages and a less safe workplace.

But Ms Collins said that the prison population would continue to grow so "if people are working in the private prison and they don't like the wages, they can go and work in the public sector".

"It's like people in the private sector now sometimes think people in the public sector are paid much better - it happens from time to time. But ultimately there will be jobs in the public sector."

Mel Smith, former Ombudsman in charge of prisons who fronted journalists with Ms Collins, dismissed Labour Party concerns that there would be issues of transparency in a private prison.

"There will be a Corrections-appointed monitor involved day-to-day to ensure that policies and practices are observed," Mr Smith said.

"A privately managed prison is subject to the Official Information Act, and the oversight of the Ombudsman."

Ms Collins said introducing private prisons was not an ideological battle, but more about what would work best. Privatising prison management was less about saving money and more about improving innovation.

"Taxpayers' money always matters and it would be good to save some money but ultimately it's about better solutions. And if we can rehabilitate prisoners to a higher rate than we do now, that is going to save a lot of money."

She said she admired the rehabilitation programmes that the privately run ACRP had introduced which were later adopted in other prisons.

Among these was a prisoner education programme that included cultural activities for Maori and Pacific Islanders.

Any private contract would have to include an iwi-led programme to help Maori prisoners, she said.

A bill allowing the privatisation of prisons was passed under urgency in November and Ms Collins has earmarked Auckland's rebuilt Mt Eden Prison, which will include ACRP, to be privatised.