Judith Collins has criticised the prison guards' union for suggesting the Government's 'three-strike' policy would put guards at risk.

Preventive detention will be retained as a sentencing option for judges under the Government's proposed "three strikes" legislation, Police Minister Judith Collins said today.

Offenders with a record will have "nothing to lose" and could be more likely to kill under the three-strikes law, a prisoners' advocate says.

National and Act have agreed to pass a three-strikes law under which some killers will be locked away in prison without any chance of release.

Double killer Rufus Junior Marsh, a career criminal who spent just 18 months out of jail since he was 14, has died in prison.

The Government is distancing itself from the controversy around the prison release of notorious rapist Maka Renata.

A man taught to rape at age 14, and described by some as a "timebomb", is on the run after breaching conditions of his release from prison.

A man has been arrested trying to smuggle up to 50,000 doses of the psychedelic drug lysergic acid (LSD), worth up to $2.5m, into an Auckland prison.

An Auckland Prison inmate left police a taunting note on a concrete slab before cutting his way through a steel perimeter fence to freedom.

Escaper Kevin Polwart left a cartoon taunt for police and prison authorities when he cut his way to freedom.

Police are now trying to track down escaped prisoner Kevin Polwart through his family and known associates.

An inmate who cut his way out of Paremoremo prison was moved there after guards at his previous jail found escape plans in his cell.

Police believe a prisoner who broke out of the high security Auckland Prison at Paremoremo may have now made it out of the area.

Police are still hunting for an escaped prisoner who was years earlier on the run for 41 days, in which time he robbed a security van.