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Comment: So far, the government’s corrections policy seems to have been a mix of more prison beds and rehabilitation courses. But where is the substantive discussion about reintegration?
In one of several pre-Budget announcements, we have heard that the 455-bed Waikeria Prison—which is already being extended by 600 beds—will be further extended by 810 beds.
Simultaneously, two bills aiming to increase access to rehabilitation programmes are progressing through Parliament. One, the Corrections Amendment Bill, will enable remand prisoners to undertake rehabilitation programmes. This is to address problems caused by the time it takes for cases to go to trial. Not only are not-guilty people spending longer in detention, but many people sentenced to prison have already served their time (or much of it) before they receive their sentence. This means undertaking rehabilitation programmes isn’t possible.
The second bill, the Parole (Mandatory Completion of Rehabilitative Programmes) Amendment Bill, aims to make rehabilitation programmes a mandatory requirement for parole eligibility.
But missing in much of this discussion is the need for reintegration—helping prisoners succeed in the community, because rehabilitation is no good without the support that ensures a successful transition into the community to prevent re-offending.
Naturally, reintegration cannot all be done within the walls of a prison, or at least the conventional architecture of a prison. As well as investing in support programmes in the community, strategies that breach the prison wall are important. Release to Work is one example, but we also need to think about the type of prison architecture proposed for the further extension to Waikeria—and whether Waikeria is the best place for more prison beds.
Self-care units are New Zealand’s equivalent to an open prison, where prisoners live in groups of four, basically as flatmates, sharing domestic duties and preparing for life outside prison. As the Corrections website puts it: “The open, shared accommodation teaches people the necessary living skills (budgeting, cooking, and cleaning) required for a successful reintegration into society.” The units help reduce “re-offending by increasing residents’ personal responsibility and self-reliance before their release from prison”.
The first of these was opened by a National government in May 1998 at Christchurch Women’s Prison, when the then Corrections Minister Nick Smith said: “Releasing inmates ‘cold turkey’ into the community is a recipe for disaster.”
As buildings, self-care units are similar to a small house and they are located within or just outside the secure perimeter of a prison. One Otago Daily Times article noted of Otago Corrections Facility: “Particularly impressive are the self-care facilities, standalone houses capable of housing four inmates deemed to be low security … These inmates have proved themselves in the prison system and are working towards their release, meaning they plan their own menus and do their own grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning. The house has the feel of an upmarket student flat, albeit one that is cleaner and warmer.”
Little specific information about the type of architecture intended for the further extension of Waikeria has been provided, but commentary on the topic proceeds as if all prison accommodation is the same. It tends to be described using words like “mega-prison” and “enormous concrete cage”, which express the type of steel and concrete architecture conventionally designed to house high- or maximum-security prisoners, who are 17.5 percent of New Zealand’s sentenced prisoners.
But prison architecture doesn’t have to be this way.
Though I am no advocate for such a large prison as is being proposed for Waikeria, we do need to build the type of prison architecture that will better support reintegration.
Instead, we tend to house prisoners in accommodation that is more secure than it needs to be.
Official information requests show that in 2019, 1,682 minimum security and 1,258 low security prisoners were housed in accommodation designed for a higher security-risk classification. In 2020, when a third of prisoners were minimum security prisoners, we had four percent of prison accommodation designed for them.
It is time that any expansion of prison real estate meets this deficiency in the type of prison architecture in which prisoners are housed. In particular, we need to increase the type of normalising architecture that will better prepare prisoners for release into the community.
This article was originally published on Newsroom.
Christine McCarthy is a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington and a former president of the Wellington Howard League for Penal Reform.