Female prison population overflows
Arohata Prison’s female inmate population has overflowed into a self-contained unit set up at Upper Hutt’s Rimutaka facility.
The Corrections Department emphasised there would be no contact between the roughly 1000 men already locked inside Rimutaka and the women being held in the Arohata Upper Jail - a selfcontained 56-bed unit on the grounds of the Upper Hutt prison site.
While the unit was originally closed in 2015, the national prison population has since risen faster than expected so Corrections urgently needed the beds before a new 60-bed unit can be completed at Arohata Prison in Tawa later this year.
Corrections Department chief custodial officer Neil Beales said the unit was entirely separate from the main male prison, and the women will continue to have access to the same programmes and other activities.
‘‘The Arohata Upper Jail, while located near Rimutaka Prison is geographically isolated from it and prisoners in each site are unable to see each other.
‘‘In addition to building new capacity, we are looking at alternative options to imprisonment for female prisoners, including increasing the use of electronically monitored bail, working with the courts to increase efficiency and timeliness, and with police to manage offenders.’’
Staff were seconded to the unit, which had a phased reopening from February 15, until new staff can be recruited and trained.
This will take the Arohata Prison’s operating capacity from 103 to 159 beds.
Like with men, more women have been charged with serious offences especially violence, burglary and theft and serious drug offending, Beales said.
More were being remanded in custody for longer periods, and with longer sentences.
Youth justice group JustSpeak director Katie Workman said prison numbers hit 10,000 last November because of government actions, and in spite of falling crime rates over the past five years.
‘‘They changed the bail laws so that over a quarter of all of our prisoners are on remand and not even sentenced to prison yet.
‘‘We need a real solution that looks at why we have so many women in prison and away from their children and whanau in the first place, and aims to reduce this number.’’
Sensible Sentencing Trust founder Garth McVicar said teaching people personal accountability and responsibility at all levels of society would reduce the numbers.