Human Rights and Prisons - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

In September 2009, a „Rehabilitation and Reintegration Services‟ group was
established. This group is tasked with streamlining service delivery and is
responsible for sentence management and pre-release plans, rehabilitation
programmes, psychological services, specialist treatments as well as prisoner
employment and education.
5.1 Administration of Time
Law and policy framework
The administration of time is established through management plans, that
apply to all prisoners who are detained for more than two months. Plans must
be based on an assessment of the needs, capacities, and disposition of the
prisoner; they must provide for their safe, secure and humane containment;
they must outline how prisoners can make constructive use of their time in
prison; and they must detail preparations for release and successful
community reintegration (Corrections Act, s51(4)). The Prison Service
Offender Management Manual outlines the assessment tools for this process.
An 8am to 5pm unlock regime is now standard policy for all high security
units. This regime can also be operationalised in other units, and is principally
dependent upon staffing levels.
Issues
For most prisoners, prison life „is essentially life on the landings‟ (McDermott
and King, 2008:282). The „pervasive mood‟, for staff and prisoners alike, is
boredom (The Ombudsmen‟s Office, 2007:60). This mood is intensified with
the use of long lock-down periods in which prisoners will have no access to
social activities, prison facilities, visitors or phone calls. The NZ National
Health Committee (2010:33) has recently noted that the boredom of
imprisonment, and the isolation of prisoners, can lead to anger, frustration,
anxiety and trouble. They detail that prisoners „also described how a lack of
meaningful activity weakened their mental health and encouraged drug taking,
bad behaviour, and aggression‟.
Lock-down times are dependent on a host of factors including security
classifications (higher-risk prisoners have shorter unlock hours), prisoner
safety (those deemed at risk from others/themselves can be locked down for
longer), limited facilities (with lockdown used to keep remand and sentenced
prisoners separated), and staff shortages and absences.
During 2007 and 2008, there were reports of early lockdowns at a number of
prisons – Rimutaka, Arohata, Wellington and Waikeria – as a consequence of
staff shortages and budgetary restraints (Cheng, 2007; Prison Fellowship,
2008). The Howard League for Penal Reform also reported increasing
complaints about longer lockdowns during 2008-9 (Howard League, 2009).
Prison Fellowship stated that the lockdown in Rimutaka had an impact on the
(religious, educational, work or recreational) programmes that could be
pursued in the Faith-based Unit. The use of lockdowns and their impact,
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