Waikeria Prison Rioters Surrender After Six-Day Standoff; prison conditions are not cause for disturbances, says Kelvin Davis

The 16 men who rioted at the Waikeria prison surrendered peacefully at 12:37 pm today, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says.

They received food and water and will soon be transported to other prisons in the country.

A prisoner, who was attacked by the rioters, was injured, Davis told the media at a news conference in Wellington.

The upper jail has been completely destroyed and can no longer be used, Davis says.

The police are the only agency that can charge men for their actions.

Davis says the prisoners never raised any issues about their living conditions before protesting. He doesn’t think men protested for the reasons they say.

He says he has performed behind the scenes, receiving hourly updates most days. He thought that containment should be left to Corrections staff who are trained for situations like this.

Davis thought the men wanted political attention and did not speak out for fear of encouraging other prisoners to take similar action.

When asked about his apparent lack of communication amid the riots, Davis says his role was to leave the answer to the experts.

The prison population in Waikeria has decreased by 20 percent since March 2018, Davis says.

Department of Corrections Incident Controller Jeanette Burns says there are extensive processes and actions when riots like this occur.

She says Corrections “were always in control” of the situation.

Last night, staff made an attempt to bring the confrontation to a safe end, but they met stiff resistance from rioters, Burns says.

The staff withdrew after more fires were lit and debris was thrown at them.

This morning, all 16 men indicated they wanted to give up and shortly after noon they were all off the roof.

Burns recognized the front-line personnel who responded to the event, saying they were “outstanding.”

The Executive Director of the Department of Corrections, Jeremey Lightfoot, reiterated Burns’ comments, saying that all agencies worked together to allow it to end safely.

Several reviews are underway: two internal ones commissioned by Lightfoot.

One will be an operational review, which they will learn from, he says.

The operational review should be completed in three months.

A second, larger review has also been commissioned which will allow Corrections to consider some of the larger issues from the event and can take six to nine months to complete.

The rioters’ actions exposed them, other prisoners, Corrections staff and emergency services to harm, Lightfoot says.

“There is no excuse for the things these men have done,” he said.

The water comes from a drilling and treatment plant, tested six days a week, and there have been no concerns with the water, says Lightfoot. The staff uses the same water.

Various measures have been taken to improve conditions in the upper jail, including the repainting of some cells.

The patios are checked daily and repaired when necessary, says Lightfoot. There are more resources in the area of ​​the property so that inmates can receive them quickly.

There are multiple channels for inmates to file complaints or raise concerns, Lightfoot says.

They include the Ombudsman, a form to fill out, and a toll-free 0800 number for inmates to call.

Corrections expects a new facility they are building in Waikeria to replace the upper jail to be completed by 2022.

About $ 10,000 per month is spent on replacement clothing in Waikeria.

The 16 inmates who invaded the prison last week finally surrendered around noon today, Maori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi announced in a statement around 1 pm.

Waititi arrived at the prison this morning after traveling overnight to meet with the 16 inmates after they asked to speak to him, he said.

“They were ready to go down,” Waititi said. “Naturally, they were tired and hungry, but they were still very determined to see change.

The group had been evading capture on the roof of the jail after starting a riot and lighting damaging fires in the prison yard Tuesday afternoon.

They had been threatening staff and the police, throwing debris at them from the roofs of buildings.

Most of those involved in the event were members of the Mongolian and Comancher gangs, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis said today.

Five of the men were deported from Australia, and three of them were subject to return orders due to their criminal convictions.

It’s the first time Davis has commented on the six-day uprising.

“I made the decision not to give in to the demands of these men or make public comments that would simply have opened a political negotiation with them and would have achieved nothing to bring the event to a safe resolution.

The group had destroyed the ‘superior jail’ facility at Waikeria prison, rendering it unusable, he said.

Responsibility for pressing charges in connection with the destruction of the facility rests with the police, Davis’s statement said.

“The arson, violence and destruction carried out by these men were reckless criminal acts that put themselves, other inmates, Corrections personnel and emergency services in danger,” Davis said.

The inmates were protesting a number of things, from the supposedly brown water, dirty bedding, and paper bag food being fed to them.

Waititi, the Waiariki MP, says that people should serve the penalty for their crimes, but they deserve to be treated humanely.

“Even the prison guards acknowledged to us that the state of the unit was unacceptable,” he said.

“They have achieved what they set out to do when they embarked on drawing attention to their mistreatment in prison.

“When injustice is normalized, challenge and protest are necessary. These men are the product of such injustices and with their protest they have changed the face of Corrections forever.

“These men are not animals, they are human; They are siblings, parents and children and deserve better treatment.

“If you treat a person like a dog, they will act like one and that is the saddest part of this whole saga; a failed criminal justice system adopted in a land 12,000 miles away.”

Waititi addressed an audience on the Māori Party’s Facebook page, along with the speaker and Waikato reo and tikanga expert Rahui Papa.

“We have been involved in the kaupapa today to support the safe delivery of our whanau,” Waititi said.

He said inmates were treated with respect when they surrendered.

Waititi said that mana whenua and local iwi helped with the negotiations.

“We have cleared the way for, I think, a successful operation.”

“We are very happy with the way things have happened.”

Waititi said that mana whenua protocols were adhered to during the negotiations.

“But the great movement is moving forward.”

Waititi also cited the Ombudsman’s report, released last year, which cited hygiene and maintenance problems in parts of Waikeria.

“This was indicative of a failed system for our people.”

He said it was also important for prison workers to be safe.

“We can move forward together for a better future.”

Much of the prison is now habitable, after rioters destroyed more than a third of the capacity of Waikeria’s beds in the middle of the week.

The Department of Corrections revealed today that it was concerned about the structural integrity of the burned buildings and said there is a possibility that they will collapse.

Waititi thanked the authorities involved in the confrontation for allowing him to participate in the delivery of the prisoners.

“Letting me in shows that when we put the bureaucracy aside, treat our people with dignity and allow us as Maori to deal with ours in the Maori way, we are successful,” he said.

Corrections has been contacted for comment.

The government was directing inquiries to Kelvin Davis’ office.

The minister’s press secretary, Rob Johnson, shortly before 1pm, said he had not seen the statement from the Maori Party.

Waititi spokesman Keanu Flavell said he was about to be briefed on the situation at 1 p.m.

Davis’s critics say the minister has been notably absent since the crisis erupted five days ago.

The last major New Zealand prison riot was on Spring Hill in 2013, but it was resolved in nine hours, paling in comparison to the Waikeria riots.

The Waikeria riots are the longest and potentially most destructive in any New Zealand jail for decades.

It’s not immediately clear how much the chaos will cost taxpayers, but the 2013 Spring Hill riot caused $ 10 million in damage.

A Corrections report on the Spring Hill mutiny found that inmates got drunk on homebrew and that the prison’s administrative team was divided and dysfunctional.

At the time, Corrections said the Spring Hill riot was the largest and most destructive case of “concerted indiscipline” in any jail in the 21st century.

This week’s Waikeria riots, or protests, overshadow other prison riots in recent years.
At Ngawha Prison, near Kaikohe in Northland, in 2012, a riot squad was deployed after inmates damaged cells and started fires.

An Ombudsman report released in August 2020 found that conditions in Waikeria in some cases did not meet minimum UN standards.

The Ombudsman found that meal times in the prison did not reflect normal meal times, and many inmates expressed concerns about the quality of the water.

Some cells were dilapidated, pieces of vinyl were missing from the floor, some windows had no curtains and the bathrooms had no covers.

Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand Executive Director Meg de Ronde said John Tamihere arrived about an hour ago and appeared to have had access to the interior.

There have been a large number of former prisoners and current Mongrel Mob members outside the prison in support, he said.

They just shook hands and left, he said.

“I am currently looking at a large Tino Rangatiratanga flag that has been waving.”

Outsiders were relieved, but there were also “we’ll believe it when we see it,” comments, she said.

Community campaign organization ActionStation, the prison abolitionist group People Against Prisons Aotearoa, and the criminal justice reform movement JustSpeak called for “compassion” after inmates surrendered.

“Following the surrender of the protesters at the Waikeria prison, we ask Corrections and Police not to bring additional charges against the men who have been protesting,” the three groups said in a joint statement.