Forcibly administered ‘punitive culture’ in New Zealand’s largest women’s prison

By RNZ

New Zealand’s largest women’s prison has a “punitive culture” where guards are too quick to use force and women’s health needs are unmet due to understaffing, according to an internal review by Fixes.

The Auckland Region Women’s Correctional Center (ARWCF) in Wiri has also broken the law several times by denying inmates their minimum right of one hour outside their cells each day.

A review of the prison and documents obtained under the Official Information Law highlight the poor conditions and dysfunctional management in the prison, which houses more than 400 of the country’s 630 inmates.

Corrections ordered an operational review after RNZ revealed in May that some inmates were staying in their cells for more than 23 hours a day.

The review investigated the prison confinement regime and also looked at the broader issue of prison culture.

“ARWCF may have developed over the years a culture in which many employees take a punitive approach to their work rather than a humane approach,” the report says. This includes “applying the use of force rather than first attempting to resolve problems with more appropriate tactical communications.”

Amnesty International Executive Director Meg de Ronde said she was shocked by the report’s findings.

“What this report paints is the possibility of a dusty situation,” he said. “If force is not used as a last resort, and the culture is said to be punitive, this could have real effects on the interactions between prison guards and the people who are locked up.”

Alan Whitley, president of CANZ, the union that represents correctional officers, said that the use of force was increasing because attacks against prison officers were increasing.

“As a result of an assault, there is an action and the action is usually about locking up the prisoner. It can be done in various ways. It can be practical, trying to calm them down, knocking them down to the ground. He could also be deploying and using pepper spray.

The review also says that inmates’ medical needs are not being met due to poor leadership and staffing levels are roughly half of what is needed.

“ARWCF is in high demand for health services, but does not appear to have adequate health personnel or custodial staff to transport prisoners to and from medical appointments,” the review says.

RNZ spoke to a woman, to be identified only as Joanne, released from ARWCF after serving five months on drug convictions. She said her requests for medical help to treat severe asthma were ignored.

“It took me six fucking weeks just to get a Ventolin inhaler for my asthma. I actually ended up buying one for another girl,” she said. “To see a doctor, you have to book weeks in advance and you may not even be able to see the doctor.”

The report says that despite having a “disproportionately large” demand for health services compared to other women’s prisons, ARWCF has one nurse for every 28 prisoners compared to a ratio of 1 to 12 in Arohata and 1 to 11 in Christchurch Women’s Prison.

The problems are compounded by dysfunctional management, according to the report, which describes “a strained relationship between health and custody that has meant a lack of trust and goodwill between them.”

It says some senior prison officials “view health poorly due to health requests for prisoners to attend outside medical appointments,” requiring multiple staff members to cover the security of the visits.

The prison health unit staff complained to the conductor that, instead of responding to requests for medical assistance, the guards were telling inmates to fill out complaint forms.

The report highlights the main flaws in the prison complaint process in general. In a sample taken in April, the review found that out of 69 complaints, only 36 were properly addressed by granting an inmate an interview within the required three working days.

The report quotes a prison director as saying that “staff are not aware of the complaints process.”

Many of the complaints at the prison refer to excessive hours of confinement. Being confined in a cell for more than 22 hours a day meets the UN definition of solitary confinement and more than 23 hours violates the minimum rights established in the Corrections Act.

“There is not enough daylight,” Joanne said. “They locked us in our rooms 23 hours a day and fed us while filming,” he said. “So they lower the lid and pass our meals, like feeding an animal. It’s horrible.”

The report says that “ARWCF is fighting” to grant prisoners their minimum rights, as it operates several different unlocking regimes due to the need to separate prisoners.

“Staff who were spoken to in residential units indicated that there were often difficulties in allowing prisoners to have their minimal rights regarding exercise,” the report says. “This was often due to unplanned staff absences, resulting in a shortage of staff and the difficulty staff faced with different categories of inmates that cannot be mixed.”

The review said prison administrators often did not know which prisoners were locked up for more than 23 hours a day because record keeping was very poor.

It is speculated that some women may have turned down exercise time rather than denied it.

“It is likely that the prisoners were given or offered an hour of exercise, but (ARWCF) did not accurately record the occasions when the prisoners did not want to exercise.”

Emails released under the Official Information Act show how poor record keeping was.

Following an investigation by RNZ on April 29, Corrections had to review CCTV footage in the prison to find out when the women were released from their cells because no record book entries had been made.

Reviewing images from four days between March 29 and April 10, in which no records had been kept, managers found that on 16 out of 30 occasions women were locked up for more than 23 hours.

The Commissioner for the Northern Region, Lynette Cave, sent an email to her colleagues the night of the RNZ application saying that “this practice cannot continue because we cannot leave the wāhine in cells for more than 24 hours.”

Records released under the OIA show that on the morning of April 2, the women in one wing were only out of their cells between 9.36 a.m. and 10.20 a.m., giving them only 44 minutes out of their cells that day.

Later that day, another group of women’s cells were unlocked between 2.50 p.m. and 3.22 p.m., about half their legal right, while another group got only 14 minutes out of their cells between 3.12 p.m. and 3 p.m. 3.26 pm

Corrections said that the afternoon lockdown hours were due to an incident in the High Security Unit where pepper spray was used and the unit was closed at 3.20 p.m.

A further review of CCTV footage between March 11 and March 21 showed that the 79 unlock periods met at least the minimum requirement of providing one hour of exercise.

“The fact that they have to turn to CCTV footage to understand what was happening in their own prison really highlights why this is urgent and cannot be allowed to continue,” said Meg de Ronde of Amnesty International.

The email trace shows that senior managers were concerned about the legality of the confinement regime, and Lynette Cave emailed her colleagues on April 30: “Can you send me a CC message requesting a legal opinion about this”.

The documents show that the lockdown regimes at ARWCF were established before Covid-19, so they cannot be ruled out as a reaction to keep the virus out of prisons.

The Internal Corrections review at ARWCF says that key personnel, including the custody manager, health manager, prison director and deputy director of the prison, had been “on secondment in recent years.”

National Corrections Commissioner Rachel Leota said a prison director had now been permanently appointed and was leading the recommended changes in the review. “The culture of the site has improved with an emphasis on the well-being and well-being of the staff.”

He said the prison had now adopted “practices to support humanizing and healing outcomes” for inmates.

A health center director and a nurse have also been appointed and work is under way to improve the relationship between the health and custodial units.

Leota said that the ARWCF was introducing telehealth sessions that would reduce the number of women who need to leave prison to receive health services.

The prison had also established a new recording and monitoring system to ensure that inmates were given the minimum right of at least one hour outside of their cells to exercise.