No easy fix for crowded prisons
The challenge they face now is to do the work it takes to come up with a workable, sustainable solution that balances the needs of inmates, Corrections staff, and the public, against the fact that time is limited.
It’s hard to escape the sense that, in the face of a situation that requires urgent action, a Government taking the time to be sure its decision is the best one possible is considered a luxury in some quarters.
But taking the time to get it right is surely preferable to throwing a short-term, holding solution at a long-term problem.
New Zealand’s high prison muster is rightly the cause of major concern. It currently sits at around 11,000, nearly double what it was two decades ago, with precious little additional capacity available in the network. It’s certainly not a newsflash that something needs to be done about it.
Concerns that the high muster makes it difficult to put inmates through rehabilitation programmes – which, in some cases, sees them incarcerated for longer than necessary, and thus exacerbates the problem – are among those often raised.
The necessity of double-bunking is another result of the crunch that causes widespread concern, with some 32 per cent of the cells in New Zealand currently shared.
The potential negative aspects of this situation are widely seen as outweighing positives such as cellmates being able to support each other.
The previous government had plans to address the prison numbers problem, primarily in the form of a $1 billion ‘‘mega prison’’, housing up to 3000 inmates, at Waikeria, in Waikato. That would have constituted a major expansion of the facility already there, which holds 650.
A change in government has seen that plan altered. Justice Minister Andrew Little had indicated last month it may not go ahead and the Government was looking at how to combine the short-term need for extra capacity with its longterm goal of lowering the prison population by 30 per cent over 15 years.
Now Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis has confirmed what was widely expected; the Government will not go ahead with the Waikeria plan. Exactly what it will be doing is not yet clear. Davis confirmed it would be taking action, ‘‘but it will be considered and not reactive’’. It’s a courageous move, provided it follows through.
In other words, it wants to look at its options, and be sure before it signs off. Little has indicated that a possibility is smaller builds closer to local communities, which would address one of the possible drawbacks of a centralised megaprison, the incarceration of some inmates well away from their own communities.
National Corrections spokesman David Bennett responded to the decision by saying: ‘‘The Government’s failure to build Waikeria shows they are not serious about delivering a corrections system that works going forward.’’
There’s a lot of assumption in that statement, chiefly that National’s pricey plan would have worked in the long term, and it flies in the face of Little and Davis’ apparent determination to get the answer to this complicated situation right in the short and long terms.
The challenge they face now is to do the work it takes to come up with a workable, sustainable solution that balances the needs of inmates, Corrections staff, and the public, against the fact that time is limited. Taking the time to get it right will become a luxury if the process is allowed to drag on too long.