Millions being spent to imprison gunman

CHRISTCHURCH: Special security measures for locking up the Christchurch mosque gunman will cost taxpayers $3.6 million over two years, newly released documents reveal.

The cost averages $4931.50 per day compared with the average cost of $302 per day for incarcerating a standard prisoner.

In September 2019, Cabinet agreed funding of $1.9 million for the fiscal year 201920, and $1.66 million for the current fiscal year, for ‘‘increased security measures responding to the different needs and risks posed by the individual’’, newly released Cabinet documents show.

Australian national Brenton Tarrant (29) pleaded guilty in

March to 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one charge under the Terrorism Suppression Act, over attacks that took place in March last year at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch.

Special security funding is likely to continue through Tarrant’s years of incarceration.

His sentencing is scheduled to begin later this month.

Tarrant is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison.

The documents, dated September 2019, suggest the Minister of Corrections should report back to Cabinet on the ‘‘operating model used for the individual [Brenton Tarrant] . . . and ongoing level of funding required’’ before the end of this fiscal year.

Auckland University of Technology law professor Kris Gledhill said Tarrant was ‘‘marked forever’’. There would be ‘‘serious consideration of a wholelife sentence, the first in New Zealand,’’ and the special costs of both securing Tarrant in prison and keeping him safe from other inmates and sane could easily endure for more than half a century, he said.

Tarrant is an Australian citizen, but New Zealand has no established process for returning foreign convicts to serve their sentences at home.

Prof Gledhill said that while the ongoing costs were high, they were not surprising.

‘‘He’s going to have a dedicated team of officers who are responsible for him and possibly a couple of other highrisk prisoners, so the staffing costs just shoot up, frankly, when you’ve got somebody [who’s] maximum security and then add in his particular special circumstances.’’

It is understood Tarrant is segregated from other prisoners and held at Auckland Prison, the country’s only specialist maximum security facility.

University of Auckland associate professor of law Carrie Leonetti said other special costs could include CCTV cameras, Xray machines, alarm systems, search policies — for both guards and visitors and to search cells for contraband — and additional contact hours with staff trained to detect threats.

Tarrant’s profile as a white supremacist made him at high risk of abuse by other inmates, and a desirable contact for people on the outside, including white supremacists, antiwhite supremacists and media.

Prof Leonetti said there could be devastating repercussions for

Tarrant’s surviving victims and victims’ families if he received contraband such as a cellphone and was in contact with the outside world.

Cabinet also approved $800,000 for Corrections to establish a special process for screening ‘‘high risk’’ prisoners’ mail.

Cabinet papers said the outgoing mail of such prisoners would be handled under a new, centralised plan.

The mail would be couriered from prisons to Wellington and logged, reviewed and assessed there by staff specially trained and approved on the requirements of the Corrections Act 2004, and on ‘‘codes and techniques used by inmates in sending messages out.’’

Assessed mail would then be couriered back to prison directors.

The electronic copying of prisoner mail is limited by provisions in both the Corrections Act and the Privacy Act.

Previously, prisoners’ mail screening was not centralised.

The new initiative was hastily formulated, the documents show, after an incident last year, whereby a prison letter from Tarrant was posted on an internet message board and appeared to rally the support of white supremacists.

Corrections subsequently confirmed Tarrant had sent seven letters during his imprisonment.

No extra detail would be released about Tarrant’s prison management. — The New Zealand Herald

❛ . . . the staffing costs just shoot up, frankly, when you’ve got somebody [who’s] maximum security and then add in his particular special

circumstances