Financial Review Debate — Department of Corrections

I want to tell the Committee about what is probably a very topical aspect of corrections, which the Law and Order Committee saw for itself last Friday on a trip to Auckland. It was a combined visit, having a look at policing and corrections in Auckland. If I am to focus down on corrections, it is a good story to tell because we did two visits to corrections facilities. The first one was to the women’s prison at Wiri. What was most notable for the committee was that this was a visit to a working prison, so the focus on rehabilitation is extremely strong in the women’s prison at Wiri. Most of the women—I think it was in the high 90s—are doing something like 40 hours’ work per week, and that is to prepare them for their release. We know they are going to be released, so the 40 hours of work is to prepare them for that.

The committee, made up of cross-party membership—the Greens, New Zealand First, Labour, and National—had a good tour around Wiri, and we went into two or three different real work situations. The first one was into the kitchens, where we saw the women preparing meals as if they were in a real commercial kitchen. That was because if you are not going to teach them what a real commercial kitchen is like, if you are going to wrap them in prison cotton wool, then you are not going to show them what the real work environment is like on the outside. The gentleman who was the supervisor has worked extensively in the private sector in hospitality, and he was very proud of what his inmates were achieving. So we looked in the kitchen, and not only were they preparing every meal for the inmates but they were also doing all the meals and manning the canteen for the workforce for the men’s prison construction at Wiri Prison.

I was pretty impressed, actually, when I walked into that commercial kitchen and saw not only the women measuring out however many grams the prisoner allowance was for the women in the women’s prison but also making things like pizza and panini to be sold in the canteen for the workforce that was building the men’s prison. So they were learning things like, obviously, how to prepare food, how to budget, provisioning, and all those skills surrounding working in a commercial kitchen. They were operating the kitchen within the confines of being within a prison, but pretty much in line with what they would find in the outside world. It seemed to me that the women prisoners in that environment were not only enjoying themselves, but clearly they were learning new skills. There were a couple of women there making muffins to go on sale the next day. There were, as I say, pizzas and panini and hot chips, and all those things that get sold in a shop catering for workers.

We then went into the distribution centre, and, again, there are a lot of skills involved in distribution centres. Think about EziBuy and the huge distribution centre there, or think about any supermarket chain and the distribution network needed there. What blew me away about that portion of the visit was that the women were getting qualifications in running forklifts. I said: “Oh, crikey, how many men have forklift skills and qualifications?”. Well, it is mostly men. I said: “OK, how many women?”. Hardly any. Well, hello, there will be a number of women leaving the prison system who are qualified to run forklifts.

I met in particular two women, and I do not recall their names. One woman said: “Look, I know I’ve made mistakes.” She was convicted for fraud. She said: “I got out on parole. I went back to where I came from. I was struggling, I didn’t have enough money, and my kids needed stuff. I was back in my old environment and I went back to what I knew, which was fraud.” She got caught, she is back in prison, and she is saying: “Look, these skills I’m learning now, I want to use them so that when I do go back out on parole”—and she will go back out on parole—

Can I start tonight by congratulating the magnificent staff of corrections, who have worked professionally and enthusiastically and in a dedicated manner for the financial year that we are currently reviewing. We are lucky in this country to have such a professional staff manning our prisons and looking after the 34,000 to 35,000 people who are serving community sentences.

As the previous speaker, Jacqui Dean, said, there is a lot happening in our prisons and with those who are serving community sentences. This Government has set them a target of reducing reoffending by 25 percent by the year 2017. Reporting against the Better Public Services target at September of last year, we had reached 11.4 percent. The current figure stands at about 11.7 percent. That is as a result of some outstanding work from our staff. So, yes, we have increased the amount of education that is being made available to those who are serving sentences in our prisons and those who are serving community sentences.

Every person now who enters a New Zealand prison gets an educational assessment and has developed for them an educational plan. They are getting skills training, they are getting on-the-job training, as we have just heard from Jacqui Dean. They are getting drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and that has certainly ramped up. We have three working prisons. They are structured around a normal 40-hour week that includes both work and qualification and skills training. The three youth prisons that we have also have a 40-hour work week but it is based around education and gaining qualifications.

A number of outstanding things have happened throughout the last financial year. One of them that I would like to mention picks up on the previous speaker, Jacqui Dean, talking about working in a commercial kitchen. That is fantastic, and they are learning extremely good skills and doing a great job. Rimutaka Prison in this last year took part in Visa Wellington on a Plate. Martin Bosley, the chef, went and worked with some of the prison cooks and then delivered to the public a restaurant-quality meal as part of Visa Wellington on a Plate. It was the fastest-selling offering from Visa Wellington on a Plate, and the organisers have come back again this year wanting the prison to continue with this. One of the staff was actually taken on immediately and worked in a commercial kitchen. The skills that both the waiters and the cooks learnt will stand them in very good stead, I am sure.

I just want to pick up on an area that is given a lot of prominence from time to time, mainly from a critical point of view, and that is around prisoner health. Just today I got the latest magazine from the Department of Corrections, which focuses on health. I just want very quickly to take this opportunity to talk about a couple of things that are happening that have not perhaps had the prominence they deserve. First of all, this Government has opened a High Dependency Unit in a prison—20 beds initially, mainly for dementia patients, because, like the general population, the prison population is ageing. We have over 100 prisoners who are aged over 70, and we are now expanding that unit by another 10 beds. It has been extremely successful.

At Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility the health service has now taken on board the fact that it is a working prison and the women are working a structured 40-hour week. They do not want to take time off work to go and visit the nursing staff, so the nursing staff have now made themselves available 7 days a week. They are making themselves available around the normal work hours for those women. It is a fantastic partnership approach to health. Whānau Ora visits on a regular basis now in the Northland prison, and it visits during regular visiting times so that it can work with the families who are visiting prisoners. They are generally hard-to-reach people, and it knows they regularly visit their family members in that jail. That is a very good time for Whānau Ora to be talking to them. I could go on for much longer.

Report noted.

New Zealand Police