Partner pleads for prison visits
Natalia Clarke just wants to cuddle her partner, but she can’t get near him.
He is an inmate in Invercargill Prison and visitors have not been allowed inside the compound to visit their loved ones since January 24.
Face-to-face visits have been suspended at the Invercargill prison and others around the country as Corrections tries to manage the risks around the Covid-19 pandemic.
But Clarke believes it’s ridiculous, saying the rest of the country has moved on with life under Covid-19.
She understood why the no-visit rules were in place during the red traffic light settings.
But she could not fathom why they had remained in place since the orange settings were introduced in mid-April, when all gathering restrictions were removed.
Corrections did a ‘‘great job’’ of keeping inmates safe when visitors were allowed inside prisons earlier in the
pandemic, with mask wearing, vaccinations and other safety measures in place, she said.
She believed the same should be happening now.
Instead, she was left with ‘‘unreliable’’ video calls and daily phone calls to communicate with her partner.
This was not the same as seeing him in person to give him a cuddle and have a chat, she said.
Her children also missed interacting with him, and he missed them.
Clarke, who met her partner in prison after writing to him as a pen pal in mid-2021, said she was speaking as an advocate for other families who also could not visit their loved ones on the inside.
Though it was hard for her, it was much harder for the men and women in prison, as family visits were one thing they looked forward to, she said.
Many felt isolated and stressed without them and it made for an angrier prison environment, she claimed.
Clarke expected to receive ‘‘hate’’ for speaking out on the issue, but said the inmates were still human beings, and she believed it was a human right to be able to see family and partners.
Corrections deputy national commissioner Leigh Marsh confirmed visits had been restricted at prisons throughout the country during the pandemic, and no face-to-face visits had been allowed at Invercargill Prison since January 24.
There had been no discernible rise in tension in the prison that could be put down to a lack of visits, Marsh said.
He indicated face-to-face visits would resume at prisons in coming weeks, but not all at the same time as it would depend on the Covid-19 levels and staff numbers at each site.
Covid-19 and record low unemployment had affected staffing levels at prisons and Corrections was looking at how best to manage the inmate population across the country.
While visits had not been allowed, additional phone and audiovisual link facilities had been added to prisons, he said.
Prisoners had also been given weekly $5 phonecards to contact whānau and friends, and postal and courier communication was allowed, as was email with guidelines.