Human Rights and Prisons - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

Employees should perform their duties honestly, faithfully and
efficiently, respecting the rights of the public, colleagues and offenders;
Employees should not bring their employer into disrepute through their
private activities.
In relation to the second principle, the Code of Conduct makes a number of
points, including:
You are expected to treat your colleagues, offenders and any people
with whom you have official dealings with courtesy and respect. This
includes respecting and being responsive to people from all cultures.
You must not discriminate on the basis of the person‟s sex, marital
status, religious or ethical belief, colour, race, ethnic or national origins,
disability, age, political opinion, employment status, family status, or
sexual orientation.
Role modeling: All employees play an important part in reducing reoffending.
Your working relationships with other employees and with
offenders must be based upon the principles of courtesy and respect
for the dignity of others. You must also acknowledge that your actions,
attitudes and behaviours will influence offenders and it is your job,
therefore, to ensure that influence is a positive one.
Serious misconduct under the Code includes: violence or threats of violence
against offenders or others in the workplace; threatening, abusive or insulting
behaviour to any person in the workplace; sexual or racial harassment of
Department employees, offenders or others in the workplace. These activities
can receive a number of penalties including warnings and dismissal.
Corrections regulations state that every officer „must obey without question
any lawful order given by his or her senior officer; but may later raise its
validity‟ (r13). Regulation 14 also states that „no security officer or staff
member may receive any money, gratuity, reward, gift, or benefit of any kind
from or on behalf of a prisoner; neither must they enter into an agreement of
benefit with a prisoner. Regulation 17 details that the prison manager, or chief
executive, must be informed if it appears that there is a conflict of interest
between an officer‟s personal or business interests and their interactions with
prisoners.
Issues
Over recent years, there has been a range of allegations about inappropriate
conduct by prison staff. For instance, four prison officers were stood down for
allegedly using prisoners to work on their private homes in 2007 (Cook, 2007).
In 2008, there was a claim, at Christchurch Men‟s Prison, that a female staff
member had been engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a prisoner,
and that this matter had not been attended to by management (NZPA, 2008b).
In addition, there have been cases of corrupt prison officer activity at
Rimutaka Prison. The subsequent Patten Investigation (2008) found that,
while there was no evidence of systemic corruption, a culture did exist at
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