If you want to reduce the number of inmates assaulted by guards in New Zealand prisons, one obvious solution is to build less prisons, says a corrections reform advocate.
JustSpeak director Rania Sawicki Mead has responded to revelations by 1 NEWS yesterday that between 2012 and 2016 there were 31 sexual abuse and serious assault complaints from New Zealand prisoners directed at corrections staff.
Read more: Inmates at numerous New Zealand prisons accuse jail staff of sexual abuse and serious assaults
Mead says the stats are unsurprising and reflect the fundamentally flawed structure of prisons, which can not be resolved with straightforward operational improvements, such as more training.
"There is this fundamental problem with prisons as an institution that we sort of want them to do everything," Ms Mead says.
"We send people there to be rehabilitated but really they're institutions designed to punish and this gets to the heart of the problem with the way we deal with harmful behaviour in our communities - it's not very effective."
New Zealand Corrections have responded to the assault revelations saying they do hold their staff to account, and that during the financial year 2015-2016 they dismissed 22 people.
Thirty-one complaints of this kind were made by prisoners between 2012 and 2016. (Source: Other)
However, the JustSpeak director said there was no evidence these staff dismissals were disciplinary responses to the poor treatment of inmates.
Ms Mead says there is also an issues of public perception when it comes to taking the welfare of prisoners seriously.
"As we see in the responses to stories like this, the public don't always take their complaints seriously because they don't always seem to believe they have the same rights as everyone else which of course they do," Ms Mead says.
"No one deserves to be sexually assaulted, no one deserves to be physically assaulted."
"I think there are corrections officers who do a good job in difficult circumstances but you have to see there is a culture and a pervasive vibe in some of these institutions that is really harmful to staff and particularly to inmates."
And one solution to this is having less of such institutions in place, says Ms Mead.
"I would like to see fewer prisons built. The most surefire way we have to make sure people are not hurt further once we bring them into the criminal justice system, one obvious way to do that is to not build the prison that's currently being proposed at Waikeria ," she says.
"There are much more effective ways to deal with harmful behaviour."
Last night corrections minister Kelvin Davis issues a statement on the prisoner assault stats.
"This situation is not good enough and I have been clear with corrections that their data issues need to be fixed immediately," he said.
"All of the historic complaints have been investigated. Because different record systems cannot be reconciled they are unable to tell which staff may have been disciplined as a result of a complaint by a specific prisoner.
"They are making changes to their record systems so this will happen in future."
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