THE OF TARANAKI DIOCESE OF WAIKATO AND TARANAKI

SUBMISSION RE: PRISON CHANGES AS THEY AFFECT NEW PLYMOUTH PRISON

20th April 2012

1. I am Bishop of the Diocese of Waikato and Taranaki which stretches from just north of Whanganui in the south across to National Park, up to Whangamata and back across to Raglan. My specific jurisdiction is Waitomo, King Country and Taranaki. This jurisdiction includes both New Plymouth Prison and Waikeria. Archbishop David Moxon, the Bishop of Waikato and Archbishop of New Zealand is the other bishop of this Diocese and supports this submission.

2. In my opinion the process of 'public consultation' around the closure of New Plymouth prison has been disappointing. As the Bishop of one of the Church denominations that provides and supports prison chaplains and prison visitors through out the country and in New Plymouth in particular, I was not made aware of the public consultation process and I have struggled to find any reference to it on the Corrections Department Website. I was made aware yesterday that the closing date for submissions is today; 20th April 2012. In speaking with other community leaders in Taranaki over the past 24 hours they are similarly unaware. I understand that the official position of the Corrections Department as articulated at a meeting to which some community representatives were invited in New Plymouth over a month ago was that all options had been reviewed and closure was the only viable option. This does not bode well for taking community views seriously.

3. I am a regular visitor to New Plymouth prison and one of the Chaplains is an ordained Anglican minister licensed to me.

4. I, together with the Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Dr John Sentamu, Bishop Sir and Bishop John Bluck visited New Plymouth Prison in March 2010. Dr Sentamu was a former High Court judge, a prisoner of the Idi Amin regime in Uganda, a former Prison Chaplain and currently a Privy Councillor and member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom. He was highly critical of conditions in the New Plymouth prison.

5. Following the visit we made a public statement expressing concern at the conditions. We were critical not just of the physical conditions of the old part of the prison but particularly of the extended lock down regime then in place in the prison. This claim was officially denied by the Corrections Department at that time, but was reiterated following that denial to us by staff, prisoners and prisoner families. Families of prisoners publicly challenged the Department's denial through letters to the editor. Within months that regime was changed.

THE RIGHT REVEREND PHILIP RICHARDSON TE AWHINA – BISHOP’S HOUSE, 566 MANGOREI ROAD, RD1, PO BOX 547 NEW PLYMOUTH, 4340 NEW ZEALAND TELEPHONE: 64 6 7591178 FAX: 64 6 7591180 Email: [email protected]

6. We also made it clear in our statement that the efforts of staff to ameliorate the conditions in the prison were, in our view, exceptional and to be highly commended.

7. We also made it clear that the option of closing the prison was, in our opinion untenable and that a prison in Taranaki is essential in dealing with remand prisoners and ensuring that family, extended whanau, iwi and other community support are accessible to Taranaki prisoners especially when preparing prisoners for reintegration into the Taranaki community.

8. Complete closure of New Plymouth Prison is not the most effective way to achieve the stated goals of the Corrections Department of 'humane containment and reducing re-offending'. In fact it would be my submission that complete closure of the prison will increase the likelihood of reoffending and the associated costs to the community and to the taxpayers of New Zealand by making the rehabilitation of Taranaki offenders much more difficult.

Let me deal with some specific concerns and seek clarification on certain matters:

Remand Prisoners:

1. How will remand prisoners be handled? It is important to remember that people remanded in custody are not proven guilty and there are always people who are in fact proven innocent. Remand Prisoners can be held for long periods of time with regular appearances in court.

2. If they are remanded to Kaitoke or Waikeria their access to family and community support is severely compromised. Even such things as ease of access to legal advice and telephone calls to family are compromised as the additional costs of toll calls can be prohibitive to many families.

3. Family support for remand prisoners will be seriously compromised because of distance. Equally the ability of remand prisoners to participate in planning for family needs during an extended remand period or even possible eventual conviction is seriously compromised by distance. Significant impact and additional pressure will be placed on partners and families.

4. If they are to be transported to and from Kaitoke, or possibly even Waikeria for court appearances, then this means that prisoners who are not convicted will be restrained in one position for extended periods of time during transportation.

5. If held over night will they be held in the New Plymouth Police station cells? Is that the role of the NZ Police to handle prisoner care to that extent? Will the Police be responsible for feeding prisoners? How will that be achieved? Police personnel are not prison wardens. Issues around exercise, quality of food (police meals are not designed to provide a balanced diet for people in custody 'long' term), lack of activities, access to visitors (and monitoring of visitors) and a whole host of other aspects of their incarceration do not fit well in a policing environment. Some remand prisoners are 'high need' in that they are a suicide risk, have mental health or medical issues, and having them in police cells or having to transport them to Whanganui or Waikeria is not desirable.

6. The proximity of the prison to the Court is a huge bonus in the time that prisoners spend in court cells. If they have been dealt with in the morning there is an option for them to be returned to the prison during the lunch adjournment, rather than remaining in the small cells at the Court. This also can work for those appearing at 2.15pm in that they do not need to spend the whole day in the court cells and can be brought down after lunch. 7. If a person is remanded on warrant from the court to a custodial institution, police are required to uplift them and bring them for their subsequent appearance(s). Because there has been no woman's wing at New Plymouth, many, many hours of travelling has been spent by police personnel between New Plymouth and Arohata. Will the closure of the prison therefore be compensated by additional police personnel?

Visiting of Prisoners:

1. This applies to all prisoners; distance seriously compromises the opportunities for family support. This is accentuated in tough economic times when families have fewer resources to meet travel costs. Again the families suffer. In particular if choices have to made whether partners or children travel for visits it will be the children who will miss out.

2. The best opportunity most have of sorting themselves out comes from maintaining relationships with their families, in my view it has always been the case of men do the crime women do the time. The pressure on families to provide phone cards and visit will be immense and tenuous relationships will be further stretched.

3. In terms of legal representation it is particularly challenging to establish rapport by phone and with legal aid cuts getting aid to visit them a prison in Kaitoke or Waikeria will be next to impossible.

Reintegration Issues and Release to Work programmes:

1. How will leave days, home leave and weekend leave programmes work in the final stages of a sentence as part of the reintegration process?

2. How will family counselling and relationship counselling programmes be handled when partners are 2 1/2 - 4 hours away. These have proved critical in rehabilitation and reintegration.

3. How will release to work programs work when the aim is to release and reintegrate into the Taranaki community?

4. There are many examples of this effectively operating in Taranaki and in particular through relationship with iwi groups. This relationship assists in building a prisoners understanding of their roots and of their iwi identity. The long term support that flows from this has proven effectiveness. The ability to provide support of this kind will be seriously compromised by distance.

Staff:

1. While I acknowledge Corrections Department efforts to offer alternative positions to staff have already begun the economic impact of complete closure will be significant on the New Plymouth community.

2. Has cognisance been taken of the number of people who appear in the New Plymouth and Hawera courts? The court work load per annum in Taranaki has been (and may still be) one of the highest in the country.

Site:

1. While there are challenges with some aspects of the historic buildings on the site of the present prison there is also accommodation which is not compromised by age. There are facilities such as bathrooms and kitchens which have been recently renovated.

2. Some parts of the old prison could be demolished so that modern facilities could be extended. The cost of this must be compared with the long term costs that will be incurred either to achieve rehabilitation goals or the additional costs associated with reoffending.

In summary I am particularly concerned about the affect of complete closure on remand prisoners and on the effectiveness of programmes to rehabilitate and reintegrate Taranaki prisoners towards the end of their sentences. I am also concerned about the significant pressure placed on families who end up serving these sentences with their men. This penalising of families will be exacerbated by distance. Taranaki's isolation makes a strong case for a prison facility being maintained in Taranaki.

Bishop Muru Walters, Bishop of the Maori Bishopric Te Hui Amorangi o te Upoko o te Ika that includes Taranaki has requested that his support be recorded for this submission.

Yours in Christ

 Philip Richardson Bishop of Taranaki Diocese of Waikato and Taranaki