prison

Revealed: Suicide attempts and serious self-harm surging in NZ’s prisons

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Imprisoned New Zealanders are facing an escalation in life-threatening self-harm attempts as the Department of Corrections grapples with a mental health epidemic, according to documents obtained through the Official Information Act. Peter McKenzie reports. This story discusses depression, self-harm, suicide and traumatic events.  Prison isn’t pleasant. It is a place of restraints and restrictions where … Read more

The real question we should be asking about Māori and prisons

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Instead of asking why so many Māori people are in prison, maybe we should be asking why we’ve created a prison system that’s obsessed with putting Māori people in it. If you don’t want to go to prison just don’t do any crimes, right? Unfortunately, it’s a little bit more complicated than that. When we … Read more

The Covid-19 crisis is an opportunity to reform our prisons

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Covid-19 has demonstrated what resolute government leadership can achieve to address a serious problem. Now let’s do the same to improve our justice system, writes former Parole Board member Rhonda Pritchard. I’ve spent time in every prison in New Zealand. It was part of my job in a previous career, making repeated visits to each … Read more

People in prisons are at risk: here’s how we can protect them

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The health and wellbeing of people working and being held inside our prisons needs to be a priority, writes JustSpeak director Tania Sawicki Mead.  Kelvin Davis’s interview on The Hui last weekend made it clear that precautions taken by Corrections to stop the spread of Covid-19 will create an unprecedented restriction on the movement and … Read more

‘Tough on crime’ rhetoric is cheap, easy and terrifyingly effective

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Why do we keep falling for politicians who promise that the latest crackdown on crime will work? Former National MP and justice reform advocate Chester Borrows weighs in.  Removing the right of prisoners to vote is back on the agenda. The High Court found that the removal of the right of a prisoner, whose sentence … Read more

Want lower prisoner numbers in New Zealand? Look at Texas, not Norway

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New Zealand typically looks to Scandinavia for inspiration on improving our justice and corrections systems. But a prison expert says it’s actually Texas that can show us the best way to bring down our jail population. Ben Brooks spoke to Alex Braae about his research. If you ever have to conjure up what justice looks … Read more

Mother or villain? How Māori women offenders are portrayed in news reporting

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Criminologist Antje Deckert has just completed a two-year study of how women offenders are portrayed in New Zealand newspapers. The results show that journalists are telling very different stories abut Māori and Pākehā.  That our criminal justice system is in desperate need of reform and that we need to reduce the number of Māori individuals … Read more

#FreeLorde: How Lorde’s songs warned us she was going to jail

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New Zealand’s beloved singer-songwriter has been imprisoned for failing to finish school, prompting uproar across the internet. But we should have known it would come to this, writes senior crime correspondent Ernest Penman. The internet has gone into overdrive this week following revelations, first reported by The Spinoff, that New Zealand prime minister Simon Bridges … Read more

Corrections’ plan to use te ao Māori to reduce Māori incarceration rates

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Hōkai Rangi is a recently-released strategy aiming to drastically lower the ratio of Māori in prison in New Zealand, using Māori strategy to do so. Alice Webb-Liddall spoke with Tuari Potiki, the University of Otago’s director of the Office of Māori Development, about what these changes mean for incarcerated Māori and their whānau.  Over half … Read more

The Bulletin: Should prison mail laws change?

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Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Law changes likely over prison mail system, sharp drops in Northland vaccinations, and PM still has no plans to visit Ihumātao. Law changes are looking likely over what mail prisoners can send and receive. One News has reported on the announcement made by PM Jacinda Ardern, which … Read more

The biggest housing investment in the ‘wellbeing budget’? Prison cells

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Our housing crisis is intimately linked to our prison overcrowding crisis, write Vanessa Cole and Ti Lamusse In May 2018, Charlotte was unexpectedly released from prison following a short period on remand. While in prison, Charlotte* lost her only source of income and the room she was renting. Her family were a major source of … Read more

Everything you ever wanted to know about slushies but were afraid to ask

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Ah, the slushy – it’s the semi-frozen sugary beverage that has the nation talking. But what even is a slushy, and is Simon Bridges’ beef with them warranted? Alice Neville investigates. Despite the rapidly plummeting temperatures that autumn has brought with it (Auckland this morning was reminiscent of the Battle of Winterfell, minus all the deaths … Read more

The prisoner voting ban is still a disgrace

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Arthur William Taylor was released from prison this month, and is set to continue his legal work started behind bars including campaigning to restore voting rights to people in prison. But why did prisoners lose the right to vote in the first place?   On November 10, 2010, a young Simon Bridges took to the … Read more

Why is no one talking about diversion in mental health?

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The moment is now for tough conversations about justice reform, and it is vital that increased use of diversion for those with mental health issues is part of those conversations, writes Nicola Corner from JustSpeak For the past few months, we’ve seen a lot of much needed discussion come out in the justice space. In … Read more

A Serco prison officer refused to take his shoes off… and had his tyres slashed

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The refusal of a Serco prison officer to take his shoes off at a marae, for the tangi of a prominent New Zealand musician, has been labelled disrespectful and rude, writes Leigh-Marama McLachlan for RNZ. Tensions were running high last week for the whānau of the late Tama Renata from the reggae band Herbs – not … Read more

Kelvin Davis has a cunning plan to cut the prison population – and it’s working

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For 15 years justice advocate Roger Brooking has been campaigning for prison reform with an increasing sense of despair. Now, for the first time, he sees reasons to be hopeful. The Labour government is in a tricky situation with regard to justice reform. Justice Minister Andrew Little and Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis want to reduce … Read more

‘A real long path’: stories of lives locked up

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First hand experiences of prison are shared in a new exhibition that provides an insight into the collateral consequences of incarceration. Eighteen people from around Aotearoa have shared their stories with Justspeak and sat for 18 different portraits, displayed at Potocki Patterson gallery in Wellington and online. It’s an opportunity to hear stories that are too … Read more

Is New Zealand exploiting prison workers?

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US prisoners went on strike last week to protest the exploitation of their labour. And the conditions they’re protesting aren’t that different to those in New Zealand. Starting on August 21st, hundreds of prisoners in dozens of American prisons declared they were going on nationwide strike. Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, an organisation of prisoners’ rights advocates … Read more

Bold goals on cutting prison numbers. But where’s the coherent strategy?

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If Andrew Little had forgotten how hard it will be to liberalise the criminal justice system, two colleagues reminded him on the very night he began his task, writes Guyon Espiner for RNZ The Criminal Justice Summit, which is to lay the foundations for an advisory group to then flesh out the government’s goal of … Read more

‘It clearly isn’t working’: Andrew Little on his crusade to reform criminal justice

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Andrew Little’s drive to rethink the system goes up a gear today in a summit designed to help draw up a programme for reform. Ahead of the two-day event, in Porirua, north of Wellington, the justice minister speaks to Asher Emanuel Andrew Little got a letter recently from a woman whose son is in prison. … Read more

Māori voices should take prominence in the justice debate

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‘Nothing about us without us’ is becoming a popular catch cry of indigenous people the world over. Now the University of Otago is asking for Māori perspectives only on Māori incarceration. Earlier this year, the government announced it will spend $750 million to expand Waikeria prison by 500 beds; build 976 more beds at five different … Read more

Beans behind bars: Turning prisoners into baristas

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A new addition to Wellington’s cafe scene is giving former female prisoners the chance to hone their barista skills — and build better lives in the process. As any barista will tell you, making coffee is not an easy job. You’re on your feet all day, your hands turn to sandpaper and every inch of … Read more

How to cut the prison population by 50% in five years

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The government is about to make a final decision on a 1500-bed expansion to Waikeria Prison that would make it larger than even the biggest prison in the UK. Anti-expansion campaigner Roger Brooking explains why building more and larger prisons is exactly the wrong solution to our incarceration epidemic. Cutting the prison population by 30% … Read more

The fate of NZ’s mega-prison will be the first big test of Labour’s commitment to reform

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In opposition, Kelvin Davis was a vocal advocate for an overhaul of the lock-’em-up approach. In government, will he walk the talk, or cow to the reactionaries, asks criminologist Liam Martin Construction is set to begin next year on the biggest prison New Zealand has ever seen. A facility for 2000 prisoners is to be … Read more

Government’s 100-day plan looks good for Māori

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Scrapping of the “three-strikes” law will have a huge impact on Māori prisoners, and is just one new government policy which will have a positive impact on te iwi Māori, writes Mihingarangi Forbes. This post originally appeared on RNZ. Labour confirmed on Wednesday that the government would scrap the “three-strikes” law – which mandates increasingly harsh … Read more

The Urewera Raids: a prison diary

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Wellington activist Valerie Morse was among the Urewera 16 arrested and jailed 10 years ago. We present an excerpt from her prison diary, Can’t Hear Me Scream. As follows, four pages reproduced from a kind of journal written inside Arohata Womens Prison by Valerie Morse — one of the Urewera 16 –  “of life in prison, the bureacracy and arbitrary … Read more

‘Literacy sets everyone free’: A message to prison inmates who are learning to read

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Yesterday Rimutaka Prison celebrated graduates from the Howard League literacy programme, part of the league’s wider work equipping inmates with skills to help them while in prison and on their release. The keynote speaker was Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias; this is her speech. Some of the earliest and happiest memories I have are of … Read more