National commissioner Leigh Marsh said Corrections was managing the ongoing staffing pressures.
“When fewer staff are available, there are a range of operational decisions we can make to best manage capacity.
“These include increasing the number of beds we can safely have open and moving prisoners between sites.”
There is growing concern over how New Zealand’s prisons will accommodate increased sentencing under the new Government.
On December 7 there were 496 prisoners at Whanganui Prison, with 203 of those prisoners being managed as high security — which includes prisoners on remand. It is the second-highest the prison population has been in the past five years.
There are currently 31 available beds at the prison.
Corrections said it was adapting rosters to improve efficiency, opening additional capacity at other prisons, and re-configuring the prison population so that lower security prisoners were not accommodated in higher security beds.
Former manager of Whanganui’s Prisoners Aid & Rehabilitation Service Trust, Steve Treloar, said 27 vacancies was “a lot of vacancies, absolutely”.
“Normally, the Corrections department tries to mitigate staff vacancies by bringing in other prison officers and giving them double shifts, so they do try to mitigate any effect on the prisoners.
“One of the first things that goes when there is prison officer shortages is the time out of the cell, free time or recreation time is normally impacted.”
Pearse said on the rare occasions when there were union meetings, staff training, or other activities, staffing levels may temporarily be lower than required to safely unlock prisoners for an extended period.
In these instances, prisoners may spend more time than usual in their cells, he said.
Treloar said prisoners having to spend more time in their cells was not good.
“Every time they get the opportunity to socialise and get a bit of sunlight, I believe it is therapeutic and helpful.”
Family visits could also be shortened or the number of visiting days lessened when there was inadequate staffing.
“The flow-on effect of that is the breakdown of relationships and, of course, it’s the children that’s the most important, and maintaining a father figure.”
In 2023, no rehabilitation programmes or activities were reduced due to staffing levels, Pearse said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections said the prison population fluctuated daily due to arrests, releases, prisoner movements and court decisions.
“We will continue to constantly review the entire prison network to ensure our staffing numbers and facilities around the country are able to meet the demands of the prison population.”
Marsh said overall front-line staffing levels were increasing.
This was partly due to a far-reaching recruitment campaign by Corrections with targeted advertising.
“So far we’ve received more than 14,200 applications since October 1, 2022.”
Escapes from Whanganui prison
There has been one recorded breakout escape from Whanganui Prison this year.
On February 13 staff saw a prisoner scaling the fence of his self-care unit and responded immediately, securing the prisoner.
The unit was a residential-style flat used by prisoners nearing release and, following the escape attempt, the prisoner was relocated to a high security unit.
Information provided by the Department of Corrections revealed there have been two escapes from Whanganui Prison since 2019.
The second escape attempt happened in the calendar year 2019-2020 but was listed as absconding — when a prisoner leaves a designated area and custodial control, such as walking away from a work party.
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.
