Human Rights and Prisons - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

4. Material Conditions
Material conditions are very important to the prisoner experience. After all,
during incarceration, prisoners lose the ability to influence matters that greatly
affect their well-being and health, including their access to fresh air, food,
water, sanitary facilities, heating or decent clothing (Nowak, 2009).
Law and policy framework
The Corrections Act 2005 details its compliance with the United Nations
Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Sections 70 to 78 of
the Act establish the minimum entitlements that prisoners can expect. These
include:
Physical exercise – at least one hour per day in the open air, weather
permitting;
A separate bed/mattress and sufficient clean bedding for warmth,
health and reasonable comfort;
Food and drink – a sufficient quantity of wholesome food and drink
(based on the food and nutritional guidelines issued by the Ministry of
Health and drinking water standards); as far as practicable, allowing for
religious, spiritual, medical and cultural needs;
Access to private visitors – at least one private visitor per week for a
minimum of 30 minutes (all visitors are to be approved through an
application process);
Access to statutory visitors and specified visitors – which include
Inspectors, Ombudsmen or Visiting Justices, consular representatives,
MPs and members of the Human Rights Commission;
Access to legal advisors – they may visit at any time; if the proposed
time is unsuitable, the manager must nominate a reasonable,
alternative time; interviews must be out of hearing of others and (with
prison manager‟s agreement) out of sight of others;
Medical treatment – entitled to receive medical treatment that is
reasonably necessary; the standard of health care must be reasonably
equivalent to that available to the public;
To send and receive mail – may send/receive as much mail as prisoner
wishes, subject to some restrictions;
To make outgoing telephone calls – at least one outgoing call of up to
five minutes per week, at prisoner‟s own expense;
30