Human Rights and Prisons

10.3 Employment

The growing prison population has placed pressure on facilities, general operations as well as staff. In a 2007 Corrections briefing to the new Minister, it was highlighted that over half of all frontline prison staff have less than five years experience. In 2009, almost 60% of staff had less than five years experience (Department of Corrections, 2009c). The percentage of staff with less than two years experience had declined (29%), while the percentage of staff with between two and five years experience had increased (32%). In reality, the numbers of new staff will place significant stress on experienced staff to mentor and oversee new staff (this is a significant issue as most of prison officer training is learnt on the job). With prisoner numbers not anticipated to fall, this concern may well intensify.

It is also apparent that recruiting staff in remote locations (such as Tongariro Prison) can be difficult. Further, the Corrections Association of New Zealand has indicated that many staff are being lured by other Corrections departments, such as in Western Australia, that offer better conditions and salaries.
Over the last five years, the Department of Corrections (2008:36) have added approximately 2,700 new staff, who now mostly work in new prison facilities or attend to community-based sentences. With regards to full-time equivalent positions in 2008/09:

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  Females accounted for 40% of all Corrections staff (and 39% of all managers);
  
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  Māori accounted for 21% of all staff (and 18% of all managers);
  
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  Pacific people accounted for 9% of all staff (and just 3% of all managers).
  

10.4 Training

Prison officer trainers have been working hard – between 2001-2006, over 4,000 students went on the Initial Training Course course for Corrections in New Zealand. As a side point to the New Zealand detention situation, it seems appropriate to point out that Corrections staff should also be commended for taking a much-valued training role in building rights-based approaches in other jurisdictions, such as in Vanuatu and Timor-Leste.

The Initial Training Course, at the Corrections Staff College, is a six-week residential course for new recruits. The course covers topics such as: safety standards, addiction awareness, gang management, control and restraint techniques, procedures for transferring and escorting a prisoner, relevant legislation (including Crimes of Torture Act and NZBORA), communication and conflict resolution, building professional and ethical relationships, marae protocol, the Treaty of Waitangi, cultural diversity, and the role of the Ombudsman. Recruits are also engaged in role-play situatons at the Assessment Centre so that experienced staff can determine how recruits react to diverse situations. It is unclear how much time is spent on each of these elements. A significant recent initiative has been the introduction of the de-escalation training programme to established staff (as detailed in s7.5).
Issues that have been raised within international and local literature, on formal prison officer training include:

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  That there is a need to ensure that there is adequate provision of trained ‘specialist staff in certain areas, as well as the need to ensure that all staff are well equipped to deal appropriately with detainees – including particular groups such as children and young people, asylum-seekers and people with physical, mental or intellectual disabilities’ (Human Rights Commission, 2009b:23).
  

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  That staff training should continue to be strengthened across the officer’s working life course, so that staff engage with refresher courses to maintain training standards across the board (Ombudsmen’s Office, 2005).
  

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  That human rights education should be consolidated within Corrections training, to provide a more comprehensive approach to the application of human rights principles across Correctional practice (Human Rights Commission, 2009; UN Committee Against Torture, 2009).
  

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  That human rights education, as well as education on equality strategies, be emphasised in processes that are required for promotion at all grades (Sim, 2008).
  

There is no apparent research on the training experiences of prison officers in New Zealand however some studies have been conducted abroad. In academic writing about her own training as a prison officer, Arnold (2008) details the incongruities between taught courses and institutional (on the job) training. The density of initial training did not necessarily build confidence among new recruits, and Arnold (2008:409) reflects on the stress of potentially ‘making…the wrong decision in the prison and being unable to remember what they had been taught; compromising security; ‘not getting the routine right’; being too quiet, not assertive enough or ‘too nice’ to prisoners; not being able to deal effectively with confrontation or violence; being taken hostage; being ‘conditioned’ and manipulated by prisoners; being attacked or assaulted by prisoners; or discovering or seeing a prisoner who had seriously self-harmed, died, attempted or committed suicide’.

Similarly, Crawley and Crawley (2008) illustrate the mismatch between management values and the organisational realities of training and initiation. They detail that new recruits are often subject to high levels of stress and pressures to conform. Interestingly, stress is ‘generated through interactions with fellow officers and, more particularly, their managers, rather than through their interactions with prisoners’ (ibid:145).

10.5 Conduct

Law and policy framework

The Department of Corrections ‘Code of Conduct’ is based on three principles of conduct which all employees are expected to observe:

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  Employees should fulfil their lawful obligations to Government with professionalism and integrity;
  

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  Employees should perform their duties honestly, faithfully and efficiently, respecting the rights of the public, colleagues and offenders;
  
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  Employees should not bring their employer into disrepute through their private activities.
  

In relation to the second principle, the Code of Conduct makes a number of points, including:

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  You are expected to treat your colleagues, offenders and any people with whom you have official dealings with courtesy and respect. This includes respecting and being responsive to people from all cultures. You must not discriminate on the basis of the person’s sex, marital status, religious or ethical belief, colour, race, ethnic or national origins, disability, age, political opinion, employment status, family status, or sexual orientation.
  

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  Role modeling: All employees play an important part in reducing re-offending. Your working relationships with other employees and with offenders must be based upon the principles of courtesy and respect for the dignity of others. You must also acknowledge that your actions, attitudes and behaviours will influence offenders and it is your job, therefore, to ensure that influence is a positive one.
  

Serious misconduct under the Code includes: violence or threats of violence against offenders or others in the workplace; threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour to any person in the workplace; sexual or racial harassment of Department employees, offenders or others in the workplace. These activities can receive a number of penalties including warnings and dismissal.

Corrections regulations state that every officer ‘must obey without question any lawful order given by his or her senior officer; but may later raise its validity’ (r13). Regulation 14 also states that ‘no security officer or staff member may receive any money, gratuity, reward, gift, or benefit of any kind from or on behalf of a prisoner; neither must they enter into an agreement of benefit with a prisoner. Regulation 17 details that the prison manager, or chief executive, must be informed if it appears that there is a conflict of interest between an officer’s personal or business interests and their interactions with prisoners.

Issues

Over recent years, there has been a range of allegations about inappropriate conduct by prison staff. For instance, four prison officers were stood down for allegedly using prisoners to work on their private homes in 2007 (Cook, 2007). In 2008, there was a claim, at Christchurch Men’s Prison, that a female staff member had been engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a prisoner, and that this matter had not been attended to by management (NZPA, 2008b). In addition, there have been cases of corrupt prison officer activity at Rimutaka Prison. The subsequent Patten Investigation (2008) found that, while there was no evidence of systemic corruption, a culture did exist at Rimutaka that allowed some individual instances of corruption to occur (Patten, 2008). In 2009, Rimutaka prison had a female officer suspended after allegations of a prisoner liaison (Fitzsimons, 2009) and, in 2011, a senior manager pleaded guilty to drug offences, including cannabis cultivation (The Dominion Post, 2011).
The establishment of the Professional Standards Unit is a commendable step. This Unit started work in November 2007, and by 2009 had investigated 67 cases. In February 2009, The Press highlighted that a quarter of all complaints against Corrections staff, dealt with by the Professional Standards Unit, resulted in disciplinary action (Houlahan, 2009). There is some debate on whether the Unit should be fully independent of Corrections, to mirror the Independent Police Conduct Authority.