Gilda.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The Corrections Association says New Zealand's prisons are in crisis. Last year saw record breaking numbers of assaults on staff, almost double what they were just seven years ago. There were also more than fifteen hundred the prisoner on prisoner attacks, the highest annual figure on record. All of this comes with overcrowding,
tight budgets and a growing gang and meth problem. Today on the Front Page ends at Herald's senior reporter, Derek Chang is with us to dive into the numbers. So, Derek, when you began looking into corrections latest prison assault data, what stood out to you?
Well, the figures are the highest on record, and obviously the prison population fluctuates and the number of prison officers fluctuates. At the moment, the prison population is an all time high. It's just under teny nine hundred and the last time it was more or less the same population number was back in March twenty eighteen. So it's interesting to compare the numbers. So, I mean, Corrections keeps the starter, it's
prisoner on prisoner assaults and prisoner on staff assaults. So in the last year, which is twenty four to twenty five, there were almost sixteen hundred prisoner prisoner assaults and there were almost eleven hundred prisoner staff assaults. And if you compare that to the twenty seven eighteen year, which was when the prison population was almost just as high, there were almost twice as many prisoner staff assaults or in
the latest year than then. And there's I think it's twenty eight percent increase in the number of prison of prisoner assaults.
Is this surge mainly about more violence or more reporting of small incidents? Do you think?
Well, if you break the numbers down, the corrections data is based on serious assault, non serious assault, and no injury assault. So serious assault essentially is something that requires a visit to the hospital or is lead to a police charge, so the bar is reasonably high. And then you have a non serious assault, which is an injury which which hasn't led to a hospital visit or a
police charge. And then you have a no injury assault like you know, a shove or I throw something at you or something like that, something small that doesn't result in an injury. So the numbers are actually quite stable with serious assaults, and in fact they went down slightly in
the last year compared to the previous year. The majority of the increase is definitely from non serious and no injury assaults, and Correction is also provided like a breakdown per prison, so it's interesting to look at each prison, although I mean, there are so many factors involved in what happens and how an assault comes to be and
whether it's recorded in all those things. Corrections has also said that there's definitely been a bigger focus on reporting and that may explain some of the increase in the numbers.
You mentioned. The rising prison population is becoming more complex with higher proportions of remand prisoners, you've got gang affiliated inmates and meth uses as well. How central is this complexity this cocktail to the rise of assaults.
Well, Corrections definitely thinks that the complexity of the prison population has led to increasing chances of violence. People who who have a history of heavy matthews who then go to prison are more likely to be involved in violence. There's I think Corrections themselves refer to it as kind of like pack beatings that happen in prison and they tend to be gang related, So if there are more gang members in prisons, then there tend to be those
kinds of assaults. Just looking at the data as well, there's more Category three sentences coming through the courts, and they are the more serious offenses, punishable by at least two years in prison. There is definitely a truth about the complexity of the average prisoner, and I guess that would mean that your average prisoner is more likely to end up in these assault figures.
It doesn't really surprise us, though, does it, that prisoner numbers have gone up because national's hole tough on crime. Stants actually promised more people in prisons.
That's right, And there's a number of policies there. There's the Center Single Forms, there's the return of three strikes, there's the ending of the Section twenty seven reports for state funding. All of these are projected to mean a prison population that's three thousand higher in ten years time than without those policies. Money for corrections is based on these forecasts, right, So in this year's budget the government set aside a certain amount of money for corrections to
manage and it's based on a forecast. The forecast was for I think eight hundred and sixty prisoners by June
next year. The forecast back then, I mean it's basically way out, because we're currently at one hundred and sixty nine months ahead of schedule, and that basically means that as the prison population grows, which it's to, then the Corrections budget per prisoner is shrinking unless they ask for more money, which they haven't, so Corrections is just managing with the baseline and it's just increasingly harder as the prison population grows, the complexity of the prisoners coming in grows.
They were basically in a bit of a staff in crisis a few years ago because the prison population was shooting up since the start of twenty twenty two, and then they're just playing catch up with frontline staff. That made a big recruitment drive last year and they've halved the attrition rate, which is staff turnover rate, so they're actually at a better position than they have been, but there are still two hundred and seventy seven officers Corrections
offices short of where they want to be. And Corrections describes this, and there's a beautiful managerial phrase, suboptimal custodial frontline resilience which basically means they're not operating with the ideal level of staff and that really puts the staff under pressure. I should also add that that this is nothing new for corrections, like the forecast that was based for the prisoner forecast that was used on the basis for funding for budget twenty twenty four was also way
below the numbers that it erientually came out. So they've been they've been doing this for a while. And how long they can do it for as anyone's guess, but it's certainly it's certainly suboptimal in corrections own turn.
Well, they're constantly playing catch up pay and I'm never calling anything bad again. I'm going to be calling it suboptimal from now on.
The best we've ever been in the last eight years in terms of staff. We're in the best position we have been eight years. So it's not suboptimal at all. It's not the Christian sign that the suboptimal, the sign that Christians are the best place of being. Like I said, eight years there's an incoming government. They started a new
recruiting campaign that's been extremely successful. We've got a massive poplin of people wanting to join and become cruse stouts as we've got another civity, officers been trying to really deploy it. The violence.
You also bring up double bunking, which has become an issue and it's even been linked to a prisoner killing his cell mate. Do I experts see double bunking as an unavoidable necessity or a policy failure that's fueling that violence.
Well, that probably depends on who you ask. I remember double bunking was brought in I think in twenty ten or twenty eleven under the previous National government. I was actually part of a cohort of journalists that were taken to Ramataka Prison to sample the double bunking and you know, the sales were barely roomy. They were really comfortable. Also, you know, wasn't sharing it with among them by members, so it wasn't particularly dangerous. But double bunking has been
quite controversial. It's been increasingly used. I should say that there's no current sort of capacity crisis because there's a there was a recent addition to my carrier. So now the current capacity is over twelve thousand, but forty five percent of the prison population is now double bunked, so that's basically five thousand prisoners. It's a lot, right, and if we didn't have dumble bugging, then we wouldn't have capacity.
So it is a necessity. Prisoners are screen before they put in a double bunk, but obviously that's not fol proof and as the correction of the Association President Vlouidipassy was saying earlier this week, that creates violence, that creates tensions. We've got some optimal suboptimal stapping. So again not not great. Assaults are going up and you know there's no sort of there's no sort of reprieve coming.
You know, Mitchell said about frontline staffing levels.
He says things are going great, and obviously it's a political perspective, but it's not entirely untrue because there was much more of a staffing crisis a few years ago and they are in a much better position, but obviously they would like to have more, hundreds more in fact,
and you know, kind of both perspectives are correct. Things are better than they used to be, but they're still at such a level where it creates more risk for the staff, and the staff, you know, you got to feel for them because they can only have the numbers that corrections provides, which is based on government budgets, but they are on the front line. They deal with all
of the complexities of that happen behind bars. And they're saying that there are so few staff now that there's a whole bunch of vacant shifts that aren't being filled. Creation says that, you know that's not because there's not enough staff. It's because often for a sick leave or some unforseeable leave, and then the decision is made not to bring more people in because it can be the prison can be safely managed as it is. But the Union says, you know, it puts us more in danger.
It puts there more in danger. It creates more tension in the behind bars, and you know those and the risks are heightened.
I mean, the Union says and has told you that it's already a crisis, but the minister says it isn't. Who do you reckon is closer to the truth?
Well, I mean they have different perspectives, right, I mean the Corrections Association they represent the front line staff. They don't want to see their front line staff and danger. Obviously there's going to be some danger because it's just then nature of the job. They want to avoid that as much as possible. Part of that is having proper levels.
Part is that that is minimizing the baking shifts. And the minister he backs the staff and he backs corrections, but he's also kind of hamstrung because you know it's the finance minister who decides how much money they get. Corrections just deals with the back end of the justice pipeline. You know how many people go there isn't up to corrections. They just have to manage it. It's all about crime and police and charges and court timeliness, and that just
piles it all up. At the corrections end the year ago, you've only got this much money, You've only got this much staff. Good luck to you.
Well, has Corrections given any indication of any new funding requests for next year.
Well, in Budget twenty twenty five they asked for attack contingency, which is basically, we want this money which the government gave them to manage our folks, which as I said earlier, has been met nine months a here to forecast and attag contingency is basically, if you can give us this extra money, you can put it on the shelf. It's just for us in case there are more prisoners than the forecast number, and that would be great because then we can just pull it off the shelf if those
numbers are than forecast, which they now are. Nikolallas said no, based on Treasury advice. They said, well, in fact, I think it's better just to make you ask for out of cycle funding they call it. So Corrections has not usd for that money. Mark Mitchell told me last week that, you know, he's ready to support them if they need that money. But there's such a fiscal crunch on the government. I mean, they've got so little available money and they're
squeezing every department for every last cent. You know, they're taking hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign tourists for example, which is meant to go to the tourism and conservation and then just kind of squirreling it down over here for us, thank you very much. So it costs one point seven billion dollars a year for Corrections to manage the prison population. So there's all this pressure on them to just do everything with the baseline, which is what
they're doing so far. I just hope that you know, would say to really need more money because it's because safety is at risk. They'll ask for it and the government will give it to them.
Thanks for joining us, Derek, You're welcome. That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzidherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who was also our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.