People Against Prisons Aotearoa

This article was originally published in the June 2017 issue of MANA Magazine.

On November the 5th 1881, the New Zealand government dispatched 1600 uniformed Armed Constables to seize Parihaka. Peaceful resistance was met with military force. In the aftermath of Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahu’s campaign of peaceful resistance, hundreds of Māori were arrested and sentenced to penal slavery in the South Island. This act by the Armed Constabulary represents the pinnacle of colonialism — the literal removal of Māori from their homeland at gunpoint. Yet a few years after the atrocities at Parihaka, the Armed Constabulary became the New Zealand Police in 1886. The military organisation responsible for taking land from Māori by force became responsible for patrolling communities and locking up those who caused trouble. As our friend and comrade Sina Brown-Davis has said, the Armed Constabulary merely ‘took off their colonial uniforms and put on their police uniforms.’

Since then, the New Zealand government has poured billions of dollars into rebranding the prison system. The Department of Corrections was formed in 1995 to “improve public safety and assist in the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders,” and it continues every year to make a show of setting goals to reduce reoffending. However, a consideration of the actual, every-day functioning of the prison system demonstrates that the fundamental aim behind prisons remains the same — to make inconvenient people go away. In the present day, Māori make up more than half of all prisoners, despite making up a mere 15% of the general population. Our communities are those most affected by incarceration. Our people are those most likely to die in prison. And despite decades of lip-service in the form of “acknowledging colonialism” and “confronting racism,” the prison system continues to do the same things it did one hundred and thirty six years ago.

Firstly, it serves to obscure the devastating, ongoing effects of colonial capitalism on Māori and working-class communities. Māori land and resources were placed in the hands of colonisers looking to expand their profit margins, forcing us to labour under a capitalist system to stay alive. We were forced into the factories, into the lumberyards, onto the farms — into the harshest and most dangerous industries. With haukainga in the hands of settler capitalists, the only alternative to backbreaking wage labour for Māori was death by starvation. This labour produces huge profits for the capitalists, but for dispossessed Māori the only thing it produces is misery. Far removed from the principles of communal ownership in tikanga Māori, we were plunged into conditions of deprivation and poverty which persist to this day. All of the social problems faced by Māori today trace their whakapapa back to this initial violence. Traditional whānau structures have been torn apart by long hours of labour isolated from loved ones, leading to abuse and neglect. The misery of alienating, backbreaking labour breeds addiction and health issues among working class Māori. That very same poverty then prevents people from getting the support they need.

These problems are ongoing and real, and they lead to very real social harm in our communities. We point to their whakapapa not to excuse that social harm, but to point out how futile and disingenuous it is to deal with them using police and prisons. This is not just a flaw in some of the Department of Corrections’ operating procedures. The fundamental principle behind policing and imprisonment, which target individual people committing individual offenses, is that the causes of social harm are a person’s individual failings. In reality, people do not actually exist outside of their complex relationships to the people, politics, and economic conditions around them. We commit injustice if we attempt to judge why someone has done something harmful, and what we can do about it, without considering these factors.

The introduction of ‘tikanga-based programmes’ in New Zealand prisons has done little to address the problems caused by a history of colonisation. These programmes serve largely as a token gesture to ensure that the Department of Corrections can maintain decent public relations with Māori communities. It is important to note that tikanga Māori approaches to harm are fundamentally at odds with a system based on incarceration. As such, the incorporation of ‘tikanga Māori’ within the prison system is effectively meaningless. For utu to be restored on an individual and community level after harm has been done, the perpetrator must continue to be a part of the community they have harmed. The first thing the prison does is rip a person away from their community, to be marked for the rest of their lives with the consequences of what they did.

The prison system and the police force exist specifically to ignore the everyday misery of their targets, and blunder past the real — that is, structural and social — causes of harmful behaviour. It is no wonder, then, that the colonial New Zealand government continues to pour billions of dollars into maintaining and expanding them. This enables the government to present an image of New Zealand as a peaceful and smooth-running capitalist settler colony. If the political structure is running smoothly, then anybody who is unhappy about it must be the problem.

Secondly, prisons serve to suppress resistance to the colonial capitalist system. When the New Zealand government believed Tūhoe activists were planning a guerilla war in 2007, brutal police violence was used against the community of Ruatoki and dozens of political organisers across these islands. Just like in 1881, the New Zealand government secures its hold over Aotearoa in the present by crushing Māori between the pincers of poverty and prison. The purpose of this is to maintain the New Zealand government’s sovereignty by ensuring that Māori remain disenfranchised, alienated from one another, and unable to effectively struggle for mana motuhake. We need only watch the grainy film taken of the Takaparawhā land occupation to know that the criminalisation of protest in this country is a tool of racist violence. The isolated conditions of the prison system, which tear people away from their homes and communities, also tear people away from the hope that they can build a better world. Prisons are extremely useful tools for the New Zealand government to reduce the size of mass movements that threaten it, and to scare people away from the fight for their own liberation by threat of imprisonment. Once again, Corrections wants to send the message that people’s discontent with colonial capitalism somehow has nothing to do with the reality of living and suffering under colonial capitalism. In the eyes of the Department of Corrections, discontentment is a threat to “public safety” and reflects an individual’s personal failings. We can no longer accept that this is true.

Putting people in prison cannot undo almost two centuries of repression, dispossession, and colonisation. In many cases, it actively perpetuates these conditions and makes their devastating symptoms even worse. To truly do right by our communities, we must work towards abolishing the prison system entirely, along with the structures that brought it into existence. In its place, we must build new and better ways to deal with problems in our communities. When social harm occurs, we need to take it seriously enough to focus on treating the fundamental cause of that harm — the poverty imposed by capitalism and colonialism — rather than simply throwing the person who has done harm into a prison cell. We can look to tikanga Māori, in which social harm is resolved by healing the relationships hurt by an individual’s harmful behaviour, as a guide. To make this happen, we must understand that ripping Māori away from their communities and throwing them into cells is categorically incompatible with tikanga and therefore incompatible with mana motuhake. The journey towards Māori liberation begins with organised struggle against the forces that oppress and suppress it.

People Against Prisons Aotearoa is an organisation dedicated to fighting for the unqualified end of prisons in Aotearoa. This struggle occurs not in isolation, but as part of the struggle for universal liberation. Colonialism, capitalism, and mass incarceration are all part of the same tukutuku of oppression. It is only by tearing it apart, by any means necessary, that the mahi of weaving a new world — a world based on true justice and equal access to the things we all need to live — can begin. And it will.

nā Huriana Kopeke-Te Aho, Sophie Morgan, Dani Pickering, Emilie Rākete raua ko Aaliyah Zionov

Around every 43 minutes, a person is sent to solitary confinement in a New Zealand prison. This means they are locked away from meaningful human contact for 22 to 24 hours per day. In solitary, you are alone in an extremely monotonous physical environment, with almost nothing to do to pass the time. It is not guaranteed that you’ll get natural light or anything other than a thin mattress on a concrete slab. Your control over basic, everyday decisions is taken away. It is at the discretion of Corrections staff how often you get to use the toilet, take a shower, or get fresh air.

Although New Zealand prisons don’t have any specific cells or methods of punishment called “solitary confinement”, international observers have noted that the use of segregation and isolation in New Zealand prisons amounts to just that. No matter what name they might use, its basic character is the same. Corrections will generally justify using solitary confinement in one of four different ways. It either decides that a prisoner is at risk of self-harm, a risk to the safety of the prison or another prisoner, likely to be harmed by another prisoner, or in need of punishment.

In reality, people who are exposed to these horrible conditions, especially for long periods of time, sometimes come out of them with irreparable mental and physical damage. Rather than promoting wellness and good order in the prison, it promotes absolute misery. International evidence suggests that solitary confinement can cause migraine headaches, profound fatigue, heart palpitations, insomnia, back and other joint pain, deterioration of eyesight, poor appetite, weight loss, diarrhoea, lethargy, weakness, tremulousness (shaking), and the aggravation of pre-existing medical problems.

It also has serious psychological effects. Solitary can induce depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and psychosis, and make them worse where they already existed. Even for people with no history of mental illness, it can cause permanent damage that they will carry with them long after they leave.  

The evidence also overwhelmingly suggests that solitary actually increases the risk that prisoners will hurt themselves. In the last decade, at least 6 people have taken their own lives while in a solitary confinement cell in a New Zealand prison. Where Corrections sends people to solitary to “manage” their mental health, it’s been found that they come out of it more suicidal than they were before.

There is also evidence to suggest that solitary makes people more likely to hurt others. Because Corrections’ staff often exercise total control over prisoners in solitary, many find it very difficult to reintegrate. Once released from isolation, either back into the general prison population or into society, many prisoners are found to avoid social situations or be prone to violent outbursts. In 2013, a riot broke out in Spring Hill Corrections Facility after prisoners had been locked up for up to 26 hours at a time. Far from providing calm and control in the prison, solitary confinement clearly makes it profoundly more unhealthy, unsafe, and miserable for everyone involved.

No matter how you look at it, removing people against their will from human contact, and other basic human needs, is deeply degrading and dehumanising. In fact, a basic part of being a person is having meaningful interactions with others. We gain our sense of self, who we are and our place in the world from our interactions with other people. When our ability to interact with other people is taken away, we do not only lose a source of comfort and community. We also lose our ability to understand ourselves. It is no wonder that researchers find, again and again, that some isolated prisoners have trouble telling the difference “between reality and their own thoughts, or found reality so painful that they created their own fantasy world.” That means solitary confinement is literally dehumanising. It denies the basic human need to be with others.

These profound psychological and physical effects get worse with each passing day a prisoner is kept in solitary. In New Zealand, around 8% of solitary confinement stays last longer than 15 days, the internationally agreed maximum length. When used for such a prolonged amount of time, the suffering is so immense that, according to international observers, it effectively amounts to torture.

At any given time, more than 300 people are in solitary confinement in New Zealand prisons. On average, Corrections puts people in solitary about 12,000 times per year, and the numbers only keep rising. According to information given to us, the use of solitary confinement is growing even faster than the overall prison population. In December 2009,  about 2.11% of the prison population was in solitary. By March 2017, it had increased to 3.38% of the prison population. New Zealand now has one of the highest rates of solitary confinement in the world.

On every level, by any name, the evidence suggests that being in solitary confinement is a miserable, monotonous, and deeply harmful practice. It not only dehumanises and demeans people, but it does so while failing to do anything Corrections says it does. It completely undermines the well-being of prisoners while they’re inside, and makes them more likely to use violence once they are released. It is deeply disturbing that Corrections not only continues to use this horrible practice, but uses it more and more every year.

It’s time to end solitary confinement in New Zealand prisons once and for all. In the coming months, People Against Prisons Aotearoa will be organising a steady stream of actions, events, and publications geared towards this issue. We’ll be launching our campaign on Saturday 14 October, at the Ellen Melville Hall at 6pm. We hope to see you there.

By Aaliyah Zionov and Ti Lamusse

On the 1st of September 2017, No Pride in Prisons (NPIP) changed its name to People Against Prisons Aotearoa (PAPA). We made this decision to better reflect the fundamental purpose of the organisation. It marks the next step in our commitment to building the prison abolitionist movement in Aotearoa.

No Pride in Prisons started organising in 2015, when it was announced that Auckland Pride had invited uniformed Police and Corrections Officers to march in the Pride Parade. Several of our founding members decided to protest this decision by interrupting the parade. We could not allow the Auckland Pride Board to turn a blind eye to the fact that police and prisons are deeply violent, inhumane institutions. Our aim was to contest the claims by the New Zealand and Department of Corrections that they were now “queer-friendly.” We showed that they can never be “queer-friendly.”

Our original name, No Pride in Prisons, reflected our initial focus on combatting pinkwashing, which we defined as “the promotion of mainstream ‘gay rights’ by corporate or political entities as a veil to excuse or hide unethical practices, particularly where those practices ignore basic human and workers’ rights.” Our protest at Pride forced open a conversation about how queer and trans people were being treated by organisations that outwardly claimed to support them.

We also brought attention to the way pinkwashing weakens the left. The appropriation of queer and trans struggles by oppressive institutions and corporations sends the message that queer and trans people are okay with their exploitative practices. This can undermine the bonds of solidarity between queer and trans people and people fighting these exploitative practices.

In 2016, three hundred people brought the Pride Parade to a halt for an hour and a half. They were voicing their anger at the Police and the Department of Corrections using Pride as a PR stunt for the second year in a row. This action demonstrated the power of collective action, forcing the queer community to reevaluate our relation to these violent institutions. Forcing the Police and Corrections out of the Pride parade publicly reasserted the humanity of prisoners.

Although we were, at first, most known for our protests at Pride Parades, we do much more as an organisation. In 2016, we began to run social programmes and advocate for prisoners on a day to day basis. We also began to put direct pressure on Corrections when they were not meeting prisoners’ basic needs. In November last year, four No Pride in Prisons organisers were arrested for occupying a Corrections office to demand that a trans prisoner be moved out of solitary confinement.

Our day-to-day work was always grounded in the understanding that the best way to support prisoners is to free them from the system that causes their suffering in the first place. We understand that prisons are inherently violent, degrading, and racist institutions. As long as prisons continue to exist in Aotearoa, there will always be more people to help and more cases of abuse.

However, it became increasingly clear to us that, in order to achieve our long term goal of abolishing prisons entirely, it no longer made sense to focus just on queer and trans prisoners. Although queer and trans people certainly experience some of the worst excesses of the prison system’s violence, such violence is also experienced by people from many other walks of life. The queer and trans community cannot abolish prisons just by ourselves or just for ourselves. We came to the conclusion that the prison abolitionist movement we want to see in Aotearoa must include as many people as possible. In particular, it is essential that this movement involves as many currently and formerly incarcerated people as possible, most of whom are not queer or trans.

In February 2017, we opened up our membership to anyone who agreed with our kaupapa, and began to consciously reorient ourselves towards working for all prisoners. This began with our 10,000 Too Many march to Mt Eden Prison, in response to the news that New Zealand’s prison population had just reached 10,000 people for the first time. This record represents a new era in New Zealand’s epidemic of mass incarceration.

The march received huge support from people of many different backgrounds, confirming to us that everyone has a reason to oppose the violence of prisons. Further, it confirmed that there was an urgent need for a mass-based organisation to fight it.

As an organisation no longer exclusive to queer and trans members, and with pinkwashing no longer an emphasis in our organising, the name No Pride in Prisons became increasingly confusing and inappropriate. Many of the previously and currently incarcerated people we reached out to, who were not queer or trans, were hesitant about our name. Removed from its original context, the “Pride” reference does not hold, and the name is (understandably) often taken to mean something like “prisoners should be ashamed.” That the people we recognise as absolutely essential to our movement were sometimes put off by our name was a sign that it was becoming an obstacle to our organising. In the interests of clarity, and of better reflecting our new direction, we began discussing a name change. We arrived at People Against Prisons Aotearoa (PAPA).

As an acronym, PAPA serves as a reminder of this organisation’s commitment to the struggle for mana motuhake. The prison system in Aotearoa has been used to enforce and maintain the racist oppression of Māori. Papatūānuku, the most ancient ancestress of all humans, is a guarding and nurturing force in all our lives. We bear her in mind while we go about the revolutionary task of dismantling the prison system.

Our new name, People Against Prisons Aotearoa, better reflects our ultimate goal of seeing the unqualified abolition of prisons in Aotearoa. We are people against prisons, and we are people for each and every prisoner. We are more committed to this now than ever before.

No Pride in Prisons is pleased to announce its new booklet, Torture in New Zealand Prisons: A Briefing. 

Check out the blurb: 

This booklet draws together the findings of reports made by the Office of the Ombudsman in its investigations of four New Zealand prisons. Using these reports, No Pride in Prisons researchers provide an account, in plain language, of the ongoing abuse and mistreatment of prisoners. Contextualising this information within historical trends, they also tell the stories of prisoners who have contacted No Pride in Prisons, reminding us how this treatment is a lived reality for far too many people. Together, these accounts demonstrate the disturbing but undeniable existence of widespread torture in New Zealand prisons.

Copies of the booklet can be found online for free here, and hard copies can be purchased for $5 by emailing info@noprideinprisons.org.nz. 

The government has only one response to the booming prison population: more prison beds. Over the next few years, it plans to expand prison capacity by 1,800. The main way it will try to do this is by building a whole new prison on the same site as the existing Waikeria Prison. That prison would be the largest in New Zealand, housing more than 1,500 people.

The government’s response is absolutely futile. It impotently locks away people who have committed crimes, unwilling to address the social problems which cause crime itself. Instead of dealing with the fundamental inequalities, it abandons thousands of people to a prison system that is riddled with violence. Prisons subject very vulnerable people to an environment that makes them more mentally unwell, more likely to attempt suicide, and more likely to be sexually assaulted. Increasing the prison capacity increases the total number of people who will become victims of the violence of prisons.

Building more prisons also costs billions of dollars. Those are billions of dollars that could be spent on education, housing and healthcare. Instead of building more prisons, the government could be spending money on healthcare services for people who struggle with mental illness and drug problems. It could be addressing the drivers of crime, especially entrenched poverty and unemployment.

To make matters worse, the land that the new prison would stand on was stolen from the Ngāti Maniapoto hapu Ngāti Kaputuhi. In 1910, the Governor-General stole by proclamation the land known as the “Tokanui Block”. This land included Ngāti Kaputuhi’s marae Waiaruhe. As Te Runanga o Ngati Maniapoto notes, “Kaputuhi have been displaced from their lands for well over 100 years while corporate shysters enrich themselves by the cultural genocide of Ngati Maniapoto hapu.” We support the right of Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāti Kaputuhi to mana motuhake over their rohe. We oppose the construction of the new prison at Waikeria, and support returning the land that it sits on.

If the government’s only solution to the overcrowding crisis is to build capacity, we suggest another solution. Instead of building more prisons in response to increasing numbers of prisoners, we should be reducing the number of prisons. As we have argued elsewhere, the overcrowding crisis is caused by a change of policy that meant more people on remand ended up in prison. We can significantly reduce the number of people in prison by demanding the repeal of this policy.

Rather than building another prison at Waikeria, the land should be returned to Ngāti Maniapoto. Rather than increasing the prison population, we must do everything we can to reduce it. Action is needed now to make this happen. In the coming months and years, the movement to stop the Waikeria prison expansion will require your involvement. That starts with the 10,000 Too Many hīkoi on the 11th of February at Aotea Square in Auckland. Your action is needed now to stop the government from spending billions of dollars on new prisons. We have to stop this prison construction project now. Not one more cell!

By Ti Lamusse and Emilie Rākete

New Zealand’s prison population hit a record 10,000 for the first time in November 2016. New Zealand has never had more people in prison than it does today. This booming prison population, and the overcrowding crisis it has caused, did not happen by accident. It did not happen because of increasing crime rates.^[1] It did not happen because cops are catching more “bad guys”. It happened because the government just decided to imprison more people.

On September 4, 2013, the Bail Amendment Act came into effect. The purpose of this law is simple: to lock up more people on remand. Remand is the period of time between being charged with something and being sentenced. The majority of people imprisoned on remand have not been found guilty of anything and may never be found guilty. The law made it much harder to get bail, which has led to many more people being remanded in prison.

According to data I’ve collated between December 2013 and December 2016, the remand population has skyrocketed since the Bail Amendment Act came into effect. Before the new law, the prison population was actually falling for the first time in decades. Since the law came into effect, the prison muster has increased by about 1,700 people, an increase of 20.6%. This has been almost entirely due to an increase in the remand population. The number of people in prison on remand alone has risen by more than 1,200, a 78.4% increase.

These law changes haven’t affected all parts of the prison population equally. The changes have disproportionately impacted women and Māori prisoners. The women’s prison population has increased at twice the rate of the men’s prison population. The number of women on remand has more than doubled, now 112.4% higher than it was before the Act came into effect.

While both Māori and Pākeha prison populations have increased substantially over the past three years, the Māori prison population has grown about one and a half times faster than the Pākeha prison population. There are approximately 900 more Māori in prison since this law came into effect, increasing by about 22%. The majority of the increase in the prison population has been Māori, and Māori now make up a larger percentage of the total prison population than three years ago.

More people are now being imprisoned for poverty-related offences of dishonesty, which includes solo mums who are convicted of ‘benefit fraud’ just for trying to put food on the table for their kids.^[2] While the Bail Amendment Act isn’t the sole cause of New Zealand’s astounding imprisonment rate, as we were already locking up a ridiculous number of people before it, it has contributed to a massive increase in the prison population. This has led to more poor people, women and Māori in prison than ever before, making this law a racist, sexist law that serves the interests of the rich.

The Bail Amendment Act needs to be repealed immediately. Although there are many drivers behind New Zealand’s booming prison population, including harsh parole and racist drug laws, the repeal of the Bail Amendment Act is the first step toward undoing the worst of the violence of prison overcrowding and mass incarceration. This government policy will not be changed on its own. It requires a groundswell of people who are willing to say that they’re not going to put up with this any more. You can be a part of this movement. Join us at noon on February 11 at Aotea Square for the 10,000 Too Many hīkoi. We will be demanding the immediate repeal of the Bail Amendment Act and an end to the injustices it has produced. Make your voice heard now. Stand up for justice and demand the repeal of the Bail Amendment Act.

By Ti Lamusse

^[1] Crime rates are lower than they were three years ago.

^[2] As the Child Poverty Action Group notes, ‘benefit fraud’ is a broad category that is used to criminalise solo mothers, regardless of whether they intended to commit ‘fraud’ or if the ‘fraud’ occurred because of bureaucratic incompetency.

New Zealand’s prisons are in crisis. Plain and simple. There have never been more people in prison at any point and it is only expected to get worse. Late last year, for the first time, the prison population hit a whopping 10,000 and is expected to remain above 10,000 for the foreseeable future.

This means that the government is planning to spend billions of dollars on imprisoning thousands more people than it did even four years ago. It is planning a $1 billion spending spree to pay for a new prison at Waikeria and massive expansions elsewhere. Meanwhile, it is housing more prisoners in double-bunked cells, where there are two or more people in a cell overnight. Data released to No Pride in Prisons shows that a quarter of all cells are now double-bunked. Many of those cells were never built for two people and the prisons cannot cope with the huge increase in prisoner numbers.

This overcrowding crisis has had a very serious impact on people in prison. Internationally, double-bunking has been consistently shown to increase rates of misconduct, self-harm, suicide, and violence, including sexual violence. Prisoners who have contacted No Pride in Prisons confirm this. They have told us how in double-bunked cells all of your privacy disappears. You often have to eat, sleep, and defecate in the same room as another person and you are rarely, if ever, allowed moments just to yourself.

To make matters even worse, two prisoners have contacted No Pride in Prisons saying that their cell-mates raped them. Double-bunked cells put people at incredible risk of intimidation, exploitation, and violence at the hands of their cellmates. Instead of making plans to reduce and eventually end the practice of double-bunking, the Department of Corrections every couple of months increases the number of double-bunked cells in response to the booming prison population.

The overcrowding crisis is one of the core drivers of worsening conditions in New Zealand prisons. Prisoners have reported that levels of violence are increasing. In a recent survey, 46% of prisoners at Manawatu Prison told the Ombudsmen they had been assaulted while in prison. Prisoners have also reported extremely poor healthcare. Across the board, prisoners have said that they experience long waiting times to see doctors and dentists, and that the care they receive is often poor. One prisoner told No Pride in Prisons that she has waited months in pain to see a doctor. She asked to see a doctor in August 2016 and as of February 2017, she has still not seen one!

Because of the overcrowding crisis, prisoners are spending more and more time in their cells. Many prisoners are kept in their cells for upwards of 20 hours per day, and a large number spend 22-23 hours per day in their cells. Many prisoners do not get access to fresh air every day. Corrections justifies this mistreatment, in part, by saying that the extremely high prison population makes it practically impossible for all prisoners to get a decent amount of time out of their cells and time in the fresh air.

These problems did not come out of nowhere. In September 2013, the Bail Amendment Act came into effect. The Act made it much harder for many people to get bail. As a result, the remand prison population, or that part of the prison population which has either not been convicted or sentenced for any crime, has skyrocketed. Prisoners on remand made up approximately 72% of the total increase in the prison population since the Act came into effect, and the remand population alone has risen by more than 1200 people.

Given its current trajectory, we can expect that this problem is only going to get worse. If something doesn’t change now, there will be thousands more people in prison. There will be thousands more people who will have to go through the violence and mistreatment that the overcrowding crisis has produced. Urgent action is needed undo the worst of this crisis. This is a crisis caused by government policy – by the Bail Amendment Act. With enough public pressure, policy can be changed.

We must do everything in our power to get the Bail Amendment Act repealed. We need to make our voices as loud as possible. We need a huge mass of people to show that we won’t stand for the government’s policy of mass incarceration anymore. Tough on crime means tough on people and this government has locked away more people than ever before. If you believe that we need to end the overcrowding crisis as soon as possible, then join the movement calling for the end of the Bail Amendment Act. Turn up at noon on February 11 for the 10,000 Too Many hīkoi from Auckland’s Aotea Square to Mt Eden Prison. We need to urgently send the message that enough is enough and it is time to stop this injustice. 

By Ti Lamusse

The purpose of No Pride in Prisons is to achieve prison abolition in Aotearoa. Everything we do is grounded in these fundamental principles:

Anti-Capitalism

Capitalism is the reason prisons exist in Aotearoa. No Pride in Prisons recognises that capitalism is an exploitative economic system that is responsible for immense inequality, poverty and suffering. At the same time that capitalism creates hunger, homelessness and imprisonment for those at the bottom, it creates incredible wealth for those at the top. Capitalism is a destructive force that kills our communities and the environment. We see the prison as a cog that keeps the capitalist machine running and believe we must do everything we can to stop the injustices of this economic system. Meaningful justice requires a world beyond capitalism.

Decolonisation

The need for new markets and ever-growing profits is part of the reason for the colonisation of Aotearoa. The introduction of capitalism to Aotearoa led to large scale theft of land and the destruction of Māori society. We recognise that this racist violence is foundational to capitalism and the prison system, and support Māori revolutionary struggle against it. No Pride in Prisons is committed to tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake, as they are expressed in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and He Whakapūtanga. We believe that the prison stands in the way of decolonisation.

Prison Abolition

Prisons do not keep communities safe. Instead, they do serious harm to people in prison and make them more likely to harm others once they leave. While we support immediate reforms to police, courts and prisons which will reduce the damage they cause, we do not believe that justice can be achieved without their complete abolition. Prison abolition means a world without prisons and the violence they create. We believe that a revolution which will destroy prisons once and for all is the only way we will be able to create a just world.

Alternatives to Prisons

No Pride in Prisons is committed to alternatives to prisons that address harm and help people to change their behaviour. We recognise that no one is disposable and that everyone is capable of change. We believe in community-oriented solutions to harm that do not punish or dehumanise those who have done wrong. Justice for all those involved requires a commitment to changing harmful behaviour and repairing damaged relationships.

Equality

No Pride in Prisons is committed to building a world of equality between all people. We see prisons as an obstacle to this equality. Capitalism, racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression are made stronger by prisons. While we believe that prisons are always violent, we recognise that certain groups are more likely to experience further violence in prison than others. We are committed to ending the system that inflicts this violence. None of us are free until all of us are free.

Solidarity

Equality between all people is not a goal we can achieve on our own. Prison abolition, decolonisation and anti-capitalism in Aotearoa cannot be separated from international struggles. No Pride in Prisons stands in solidarity with the revolutionary efforts of others within Aotearoa and across the world. In unity, we are strong.

Members of prison abolitionist organisation No Pride in Prisons will be joining the Tāmaki Housing Group today to resist the eviction state housing tenant of Ioela “Niki” Rauti.

Its spokesperson Emilie Rākete says, “No Pride in Prisons is proud to join our friends and whānau in protecting Niki’s right to a home. We will be joining dozens of others in occupying Niki’s land and refusing to move until she is guaranteed the right to stay in her home.”

Rauti was served with a 90-day eviction notice, which expired on the 18th of January. The police has warned that she will be physically moved on today from 9:30am. “We intend to put our bodies on the line to stop this eviction,” says Rākete.

No Pride in Prisons believes the eviction is unjust. “One of the most frustrating things about this whole process is that it never used to be like this. State housing tenants, including Niki, were told for decades that their houses were for life.”

“The government introduced reviewable tenancies just so it could kick out state housing tenants and make some money from their eviction.”

Rauti’s house is owned by the Tāmaki Regeneration Company (TRC), which was transferred ownership from Housing New Zealand as a part of the Tāmaki redevelopment. TRC wants to develop the land that her house sits on.

“While the government and the council say these evictions are necessary to keep house prices down, we’ve seen a huge increase in house prices in the area since the redevelopments began.”

“The government is effectively kicking out old and poor people and making room for the rich. Niki’s eviction is just one part of a broader plan to undermine state housing and transfer land to the wealthy,” says Rākete.

The organisation is worried about how the move might impact Niki’s health and well-being. “Niki is an elderly woman who has a heart condition. One of the saddest parts of the Tāmaki redevelopment has been the effect on the elderly. Often, following eviction from life-long homes, elderly tenants have passed away shortly after being relocated.”

No Pride in Prisons is also concerned about the police involvement in evicting Niki. According to Rākete, “The police will do everything it can to make sure that this blatantly unjust process continues. Niki is a respected kuia, but the police intend to remove her from her home by force.”

“We oppose both Niki’s eviction and the violence we expect to see from police in order to make it happen.”

“We believe that Niki and all other tenants deserve healthy, warm and affordable homes, and the stability of knowing they won’t be evicted every time the government wants to make a buck.”

“We support the Tāmaki Housing Group and all those resisting the sell-off of state houses and the eviction of state housing tenants. This injustice is part of a broader program by this and previous governments to undermine support for poor and working class people.”

“No Pride in Prisons stands in solidarity with those fighting for safe and secure housing for all.”

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

If nothing else, No Pride in Prisons hopes that these abolitionist demands have demonstrated the fundamental injustice that underpins New Zealand’s Criminal Injustice System (CIS). There are a large number of practices that lead to the dehumanisation of those who are unfortunate enough to be incarcerated in New Zealand.

There are those currently languishing in conditions akin to solitary confinement,^[1] stuck in their cells for up to 23 hours a day, and experiencing what the UN has defined as torture.^[2] As a regular practice, incarcerated people are sexually assaulted through a strip search^[3] every time they leave or enter a prison. Trans people in prisons are not given consistent and guaranteed access to gender affirming clothing, accessories^[4] and medical treatment.^[5] Trans women are often housed in men’s prisons,^[6] against their will, put at substantial risk of being sexually assaulted.^[7] Sentenced prisoners are denied the right to vote,^[8] demonstrating the state’s desire to deny recognition of personhood to those people.

Incarcerated people who the Department of Corrections forces to work^[9] in a form of contemporary penal slavery, as well as those who choose to work, are not only being denied a living or minimum wage (or any wage),^[10] but also the right to raise pay and safety concerns.^[11] Whānau and friends of incarcerated people are often denied access to their loved ones during visitation because they cannot afford the time or money required to travel to New Zealand’s often remote prisons.

These practices, as well as the constant threat of violence that incarcerated people face, all make prisons unbearable places to be. The isolation, violence, loneliness, boredom, strip searches, and anger at the system, amongst other things, leads some incarcerated people to lash out against others and themselves. Incarcerated people commit suicide at a rate of approximately 72 per 100,000,^[12] compared with a rate of 12-13 per 100,000 in New Zealand broadly.^[13] This means that incarcerated people on average commit suicide at a rate six times higher than the general population. New Zealand prisons have become a place where we send our most vulnerable and mentally unwell people.^[14] They are also a place where the conditions of life are so unbearable that it is impossible for some to live.

So if the prison is so inhumane, why does it continue to exist? In The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, Jeffrey Reiman notes how the prison is, at the same time, a complete disaster and a resounding success. In terms of keeping communities safe, reducing social harm, or even reducing reoffending, prisons including New Zealand’s, consistently fail.^[15] However, according to Reiman, “the failure of the criminal justice system yields such benefits to those in positions of power that it amounts to a success.”^[16]

This success occurs precisely because of the incarceration of predominantly poor and indigenous people. In New Zealand, Māori make up 15% of the population but over 50% of the prison population.^[17] At every stage of the CIS, racism and racial bias is evident.^[18] These practices ultimately divert attention away from the broader causes of societal harm, such as capitalism and structural racism, and place blame on the incarcerated person for the social forces that lead them to prison.

In a more general sense, the CIS benefits those in positions of privilege by defining the actions of the wealthy as ordinary activities, while the poor are punished for things which are often much less destructive. The practices of those who traded the world into financial collapse, corporations that spew toxins into rivers and the air, the employers who are more concerned with increasing productivity than with protecting the bodies of their employees – these actions amongst countless others of the wealthy do much more damage than the young Māori man possessing methamphetamine. Yet it is the latter that the CIS invites us to fear. The prison diverts attention away from those threats to security that come from the police, other government agencies, and exploitative corporations. Therefore, the successful failure of the prison is that it leaves unquestioned the destructive actions of the powerful.

The abolition of prisons in New Zealand is the only socially acceptable, feasible alternative to the CIS and mass incarceration.

^[1]Radio New Zealand, “Prisoner Death at Mt Eden Prison,” Radio New Zealand, 13 March 2016. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/top/298812/too-many-unnatural-deaths-in-prison-labour.

^[2] UN News Centre, “Solitary Confinement Should Be Banned in Most Cases, UN Expert Says,” UN News Centre, 18 October 2011. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40097#.V5w7O-t96Um.

^[3] T Lamusse, “The State of Incarceration in Aotearoa,” No Pride in Prisons, 23 February 2016. http://noprideinprisons.org.nz/post/139820612145/the-state-of-incarceration-in-aotearoa.

^[4] Jeremy Lightfoot, “C76665 S Vella,” FYI.org.nz, 29 April 2016. https://fyi.org.nz/request/3703/response/12759/attach/html/3/C76665%20S%20Vella.pdf.html.

^[5] Jeremy Lightfoot, “Response C76663,” FYI.org.nz, 29 April 2016. https://fyi.org.nz/request/3701/response/12756/attach/html/3/Response%20C76663.pdf.html.

^[6] Jeremy Lightfoot, “C73361 S Buchanan,” FYI.org.nz, 23 October 2015. https://fyi.org.nz/request/2867/response/10098/attach/html/3/C73361%20S%20Buchanan.pdf.html.

^[7] Valerie Jenness et al., Violence in California Correctional Facilities: An Empirical Examination of Sexual Assault, (California: Center for Evidence-Based Corrections, 2007).

^[8] Aimee Gulliver, “Prisoners Should Be Allowed to Vote: High Court,” Stuff, 4 July 2015. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/70520140/Prisoners-should-be-allowed-to-vote-High-Court.

^[9] Chris Bramwell, “Working Prisons Pledge from National,” Radio New Zealand, 10 September 2014. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/254242/working-prisons-pledge-from-national.

^[10] Isaac Davison, “All Work, No Pay in Prison Reforms,” NZ Herald, 30 January 2013. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10862240.

^[11]Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 s 15.

^[12]No Pride in Prisons, “Corrections Responsible for High Rates of Suicide in Prisons,” Scoop, 14 March 2016. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1603/S00213/corrections-responsible-for-high-rates-of-suicide-in-prisons.htm.

^[13] Statistics New Zealand, “Suicide,” Statistics New Zealand, 3 June 2016. http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/nz-social-indicators/Home/Health/suicide.aspx.

^[14] Department of Corrections, The National Study of Psychiatric Morbidity in New Zealand Prisons: An Investigation of the Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders among New Zealand Inmates, (Wellington: Department of Corrections, 1999.

^[15] One News, “Corrections in the Dock Over Racism Allegations,” One News, 14 March 2016. https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/corrections-in-dock-over-racism-allegations.

^[16] Jeffrey H. Reiman, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, (Michigan: Pearson, 2004), 5.

^[17] Statistics New Zealand, “New Zealand’s Prison Population,” Statistics New Zealand, 4 July 2013. http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/yearbook/society/crime/corrections.aspx.

^[18] Department of Corrections, Over-representation of Māori in the Criminal Justice System: An Exploratory Report, (Wellington: Department of Corrections, 2007).

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

The colonial government’s Department of Corrections runs a number of so-called ‘tikanga Māori’ programmes, with the nominal goal of rehabilitating incarcerated Māori people. While these programmes may do good for Māori in prisons in terms of fostering cultural knowledge they may not have had access to otherwise, any benefits of these programmes are in spite of, not because of, their situation within the prison system. Out of a prison capacity of 682, Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison has 15 places in its tikanga Māori programme.^[1] If these proportions are representative, only approximately 5% of Māori people incarcerated at Hawke’s Bay would have access to tikanga Māori programmes. Even this level of access is contingent on an incarcerated person’s adherence to discipline. People are removed from rehabilitation programmes as punishment for refusing to adhere to prison rules.^[2] These programmes simply fail to meaningfully intervene in the lives of Māori. The reality of mass incarceration is that thousands of Māori are being removed from their whānau, hapū and iwi. If cultural revitalisation is to be realised, it is these groups who must be proactively empowered to do that work – not the occupational New Zealand state, which is responsible for the present derogation of Māori.

The punitive removal of incarcerated people from tikanga Māori programmes for breaches of discipline also acts to ensure that Māori cultural knowledge is available only at the New Zealand government’s discretion. Rather than working towards the realisation of tino rangatiratanga as a principle of tikanga Māori, these programmes are administered at the will of the settler state and its sovereignty, and incarcerated people will be removed from them if they challenge that sovereignty.^[3]

Even more importantly, it is essential to recognise that tikanga Māori are fundamentally incompatible with the system of mass incarceration. Ani Mikaere records utu as a fundamental principle of all tikanga Māori.^[4] In the wake of an instance of social harm, the restoration of balance on an interpersonal and community scale is of the utmost importance.^[5] Mass incarceration – the wholesale removal of human beings from their communities and their warehousing in prisons – destroys this balance. Within tikanga Māori, when harm is done, the relationship between perpetrator, victim, and their communities must be restored so that the damage done to the community can be healed. By tearing perpetrators out of their communities, removing all possibility of utu, the prison not only fails to restore these relationships, but ends them.^[6] Rather than addressing social harm, prisons in fact perpetuate it. For the institution of tikanga Māori, prisons must be abolished.^[7]

^[1] Department of Corrections, “Corrections Department NZ – Corrections Works December 2014 (special Maori Services Edition),” Department of Corrections, 1 December 2014. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/newsletters_and_brochures/corrections_works/2014/December_2014.html.

^[2] This critique of prison programmes in general as instruments of control was raised in Olive McRae, “Prison Reform on the Path to Prison Abolition,” International Socialist Organisation of Aotearoa/New Zealand, 15 September 2014. https://iso.org.nz/2014/09/15/prison-reform-on-the-path-to-prison-abolition/.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] 

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

In 1835, rangatira Māori ratified He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni,^[1] declaring sovereign independence for Māori. He Whakaputanga uses the term “rangatiratanga” to refer to the right to Māori sovereignty, a term later used again in Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840. In 2014, the Waitangi Tribunal confirmed that Māori have never ceded this sovereignty to either the British or New Zealand states.^[2] The New Zealand government’s claim to state sovereignty, implicitly based on its interpretation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, requires this not to be true. In practice, the New Zealand state secured its right to govern by militarily destroying all Māori attempts to resist it, as in the Flagstaff War against Ngāpuhi and the New Zealand Wars against the Kīngitanga. In both those instances, first northern Māori, and then Waikato Māori, exercised their autonomy and challenged the British state’s sovereignty. The New Zealand state owes its continued existence to these repeated wars of invasion, conquest and genocide^[3] waged against Māori. The New Zealand state, therefore, is in essence maintaining a military occupation of Aotearoa.

The term ‘military occupation’ is used specifically to identify Aotearoa as a colony. The acts of military violence used by the New Zealand state to secure its sovereignty were not departures from a civility to which it gratefully returned at the conclusion of the Land Wars. Rather, the colony’s existence depends on the New Zealand government’s acts of warfare against Māori – violence which continues to this day. Only our ability to recognise this violence as warfare has changed. Over the last century, the New Zealand state’s warfare has changed from the overt violence of mass military action to the systematic violence of poverty and societal racism, enforced by the Criminal Injustice System.

This racist violence is not an accident, but the necessary outcome of the historical processes from which the New Zealand state emerges. Racism is an essential component of the New Zealand government – it cannot exist without the racist suppression of tino rangatiratanga. No racism, no New Zealand. Finding this racism incompatible with social justice, and recognising that racism is an intrinsic component of the New Zealand state, No Pride in Prisons affirms that a complete restructuring of social, political, and economic power is necessary, culminating in the overturning of the New Zealand government.

Within tikanga Māori, rangatiratanga is qualitatively different to the Eurocentric concept of nation-statehood. The nation-state is a specific political tool developed to centralise state power in a governmental body. Rangatiratanga, by contrast, operates on the level of relationships within a community and bears more in common with participatory or radical democracy than with state sovereignty. By calling for decolonisation, No Pride in Prisons is advocating not for a Māori nation-state, with all of the abuses of power that by definition a nation-state entails, but a communal, relational society based in tikanga Māori.

^[1] Translated as ‘A declaration of the paramount authority in respect of New Zealand.’ Margaret Mutu, The State of Māori Rights, (Wellington: Huia, 2011), 205.

^[2] Waitangi Tribunal, Te Paparahi o te Raki: Wai 1040, (Wellington: Waitangi Tribunal, 2014).

^[3] Ani Mikaere, “Three (Million) Strikes and Still Not Out: The Crown as the Consummate Recidivist,” in He Rukuruku Whakaaro: Colonising Myths, Māori Realities (Wellington: Huia Publishers, 2011).

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

As prison abolitionists, it is our responsibility to provide sensible alternatives to the prison. Alongside the re-institution of tikanga Māori, our suggestion is the system of transformative justice.

Adopting a system of transformative justice in the place of the prison means abandoning the project for creating enemies to exile and isolate, as well as the project for creating profitability out of the isolation of those ‘enemies.’ Rather than demonising and incarcerating perpetrators in inhumane conditions, transformative justice begins from the understanding that people who are hurt in turn hurt others. This hurt can stem from events specific to the perpetrator’s life, such as physical or sexual abuse that they then go on to re-enact, or from more structural factors, such as poverty and colonisation. Transformative justice understands that the isolation and cruelty of incarceration only exacerbates such suffering, thus reinforcing the roots of the harm enacted by a perpetrator. Instead, transformative justice looks to protect the victim and address the issues behind the perpetrator’s actions, transforming their conditions and attitudes for the better.

For a full discussion of community-based solutions to harm and violence, see demand 10.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

All workers, including unemployed and incarcerated workers, deserve the right to create or join a union in order to advance and protect their rights.^[1] Incarcerated people are one of if not the most disempowered and constrained groups in society. This makes their right to organise collectively all the more important.

Department of Corrections staff are represented by New Zealand’s largest union, the Public Service Association (PSA), which negotiates collective agreements for members, and pushes for safety measures for staff.^[2] These measures are often implemented to the detriment of incarcerated people, with the introduction of access to things such as pepper spray,^[3] as well as calls for prison officers to be armed with tasers, batons, and attack dogs.^[4] The armament of prison officers with various weapons comes despite the number of serious assaults on prison staff falling by 75% over fifteen years.^[5]

In contrast, incarcerated people are virtually powerless to advocate for higher wages for labour they are coerced into, as well as to advocate for their own safety, dignity, rights, treatment, or release. A union of incarcerated people would be able to organise against such blatant injustices as the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act 2010, which prevents incarcerated people from voting and is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (see Demand 43).

If allowed to unionise, incarcerated people could collectively advocate for their interests. They would be able to achieve better living and working conditions, proper wages and legal employment protection, and the means to protest human rights abuses and inadequacies in the prison system. There is no more important a voice missing in the conversation about the future of the carceral system than a collective of incarcerated people themselves. Allowing for the unionisation of incarcerated workers would allow those workers to protect their most basic rights and interests. This is not an ability that should be denied to anybody, and it is for this reason that No Pride in Prisons demands that incarcerated people be granted the legal right to unionise.

^[1] Matt Born, “Prisoners in Move to Set up Trade Union,” The Telegraph, 21 August 2000. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1367035/Prisoners-in-move-to-set-up-trade-union.html.

^[2] Public Service Association, “What We Stand For,” Public Service Association, 7 April 2016. https://www.psa.org.nz/about-us/who-we-are/what-we-stand-for/.

^[3] “All Prison Officers to Have Access to Pepper Spray,” NZ Herald, 12 June 2012. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10812501.

^[4] NZPA, “Prison Attack Sparks Near-riot,” Stuff, 31 October 2010. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/4292095/Prison-attack-sparks-near-riot.

^[5] New Zealand Government, “Increased Safety for Prison Officers,” Scoop, 12 June 2012. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1206/S00131/increased-safety-for-prison-officers.htm.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

Incarcerated workers are denied some of the fundamental rights guaranteed to many non-incarcerated workers. In a 1965 New Zealand Supreme Court ruling, Morgan v Attorney-General,^[1] it was found that incarcerated people directed to work by the Prisons Department (now the Department of Corrections) are not to be considered employees. Similarly, in a 2008 ruling, M & P Steelcraft Ltd v Ellis,^[2] an incarcerated worker on a job placement scheme was also found not to be an employee of the external employer.

These rulings allow the Department of Corrections to ignore employment legislation that regulate all other employers in New Zealand. It also means that those employing incarcerated workers on Release to Work programmes^[3] are not subject to employment law for the purposes of employing incarcerated people.  This means that incarcerated workers are not guaranteed the rights enshrined in the Employment Relations Act 2000 and the Minimum Wage Act 1983. These rights include the, however limited,^[4] rights to holiday pay and leave, sick leave, overtime pay, bathroom breaks, a minimum wage, and collective bargaining. Therefore it is entirely up to the Department of Corrections to determine the number of hours people work, as well as whether it will allow workers to have breaks or go to the bathroom during working hours.

Of recent concern is the fact that, with the passage of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 following the Pike River Mine Disaster, incarcerated workers are specifically banned from raising health and safety complaints with their employers, be they the Department of Corrections or a private employer.^[5] When workers do not have the right to raise concerns about safety in the workplace, exploitative workplace practices which put workers’ bodies in danger can continue.

No Pride in Prisons demands that the unassailable rights of incarcerated workers, as workers, be recognised in legislation. In this way, the struggle for the dignity of incarcerated workers would be shared with non-incarcerated workers. All the stripping back of workers’ rights over the past thirty years need to be restored and expanded. Solidarity between a powerful incarcerated workers union on the inside and non-incarcerated workers on the outside will help to end the exploitative practices of employers everywhere. This can only happen, however, by allowing incarcerated workers the right to unionise. It is only through collective action against exploitative employers that these demands can be achieved, and the bonds of solidarity between incarcerated and non-incarcerated workers be effective in the struggle to end labour exploitation.

^[1]Morgan v Attorney-General [1965] NZLR 134 (SC).

^[2]M & P Steelcraft Ltd v Ellis [2008] ICR 578 (EAT).

^[3] Department of Corrections, “Release to Work,” Department of Corrections, 6 March 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/working_with_offenders/prison_sentences/employment_and_support_programmes/employment_activities/release_to_work.html.

^[4] Chris Flatt, “When Workers Rights Are Under Attack!,” The Daily Blog, 26 April 2013. http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/04/26/when-workers-rights-are-under-attack/.

^[5]Health and Safety at Work Act s 15.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

In the lead up to the 2014 general election, the National Government announced that it would expand its “Working Prisons” programme to all prisons across New Zealand.^[1] This came after a series of previous expansions of prison work programmes throughout the National Government’s first six years in office.^[2] Like previous expansions, the nation-wide expansion would require all incarcerated people, other than those who have serious addiction issues, to work 40 hours per week.^[3] The rate of pay for incarcerated workers is “approved by the Minister,” according to the Corrections Act 2004.^[4]

Details about the “Working Prisons” programme are currently not publicly available, although some details have leaked. According to the 2001 policy,^[5] incarcerated workers have to “volunteer” to work, so as to comply with the International Labor Organization’s Forced Labour Convention. As a reward for their ‘volunteer’ work, incarcerated people receive between $0 and $1 per hour as an “incentive payment.”^[6] Media have reported that in some instances incarcerated people are receiving no pay whatsoever,^[7] and in others that they are receiving 20,^[8] 40^[9] or 60c per hour.^[10]

For people involved in the “Release to Work” programme, where incarcerated workers are employed by an external organisation in the hope that they will be employed by that organisation on release, those workers receive “market wages”^[11] but are required to pay for the costs of transport, tools, clothing^[12] and to “pay 30 per cent of their after-tax income, up to a maximum of $250 per week, to the Department.”^[13] In practice, this can leave incarcerated workers with a weekly pay of almost nothing for 40 hours of work. Nonetheless, only between 6-10% of incarcerated people take part in this higher-paying program.^[14]

According to a spokesperson for Corrections, with the updated “Working Prisons” policy, “inmates cannot be compelled to work or study, but they would face penalties if they do not take part.”^[15] In other words, the vast majority of ‘eligible’ incarcerated people would be coerced, under threat of punishment, to work unpaid or severely underpaid for 40 hours per week. This is nothing less than a form of contemporary penal slavery.

When people are sent away to prison, their social connections and responsibilities do not suddenly disappear. Many of those currently in prison have families, whānau, partners and children who are dependent on them for income and survival. Providing a full and fair wage to incarcerated workers means that the people who depend on those workers would not be completely abandoned. Although some incarcerated workers receive a very small amount of compensation for their labour, this does not make up for the all hours of stolen labour. All workers, whether they are incarcerated or not, deserve full and fair compensation for their work.

^[1] Chris Bramwell, “Working Prisons Pledge from National,” Radio New Zealand, 10 September 2014. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/254242/working-prisons-pledge-from-national.

^[2] Isaac Davison, “All Work, No Pay in Prison Reforms,” NZ Herald, 30 January 2013. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10862240.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4]Corrections Act 2004 s 66(3).

^[5] Department of Corrections, Inmate Employment Policy, (Wellington: Department of Corrections, 2001).

^[6] Department of Corrections, Inmate Employment Policy, (Wellington: Department of Corrections, 2001), 14.

^[7] Isaac Davison, “All Work, No Pay in Prison Reforms,” NZ Herald, 30 January 2013. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10862240.

^[8] Simon Collins, “Prisoners Paid 20c an Hour to Pick Fruit,” NZ Herald, 28 February 2006. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10370353.

^[9] Timothy Brown, “Prison Farm Work Fodder for Future,” Otago Daily Times, 29 September 2013. https://www.odt.co.nz/business/farming/prison-farm-work-fodder-future.

^[10] Isaac Davison, “Left Backs National’s Plans for ‘Working Prisons’,” NZ Herald, 11 September 2014. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11322363.

^[11] Department of Corrections, “Release to Work,” Department of Corrections, 6 March 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/working_with_offenders/prison_sentences/employment_and_support_programmes/employment_activities/release_to_work.html.

^[12] Ibid.

^[13]Prisoner Skills and Employment Strategy 2009-2012, (Wellington: Department of Corrections, 2012), 18. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/676063/Prisoner-employment-strategy-09.pdf.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

The Electoral Act 1993 provides that any citizen or permanent resident of New Zealand who is incarcerated after the commencement of the Electoral Amendment Act 2010, and who has been sentenced by the courts to imprisonment for their crime(s),^[1] is disqualified for registration as an elector, meaning that they are unable to vote in local or general elections.^[2]

As found by the High Court in Taylor v Attorney General, this voting ban is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 in which every New Zealand citizen over the age of 18 has the right to vote.^[3] As stated by Justice Brown, prisoner disenfranchisement is in breach of the right of all citizens to elect a governing body on their behalf, the most fundamental aspect of liberal democracy. This denial of the right to vote is particularly egregious when considered alongside the disproportionate rates of imprisonment experienced by those most marginalised by the current economic and social order. No Pride in Prisons calls for the end of prisoner disenfranchisement and the reinstatement of voting rights to all incarcerated people.

^[1] Incarcerated people on remand still have the right to vote in New Zealand.

^[2]Electoral Act 1993 s 80(1)(d).

^[3] Taylor v Attorney-General [2014]NZHC 1630, at [11].

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

The Department of Corrections and the prison system fail to keep communities safe and to do justice. As 52% of formerly incarcerated people are re-imprisoned within 5 years of release,^[1] prisons clearly do not stop ‘crime’ or any social harm associated with it. No Pride in Prisons recognises the need for a radical shift in how society defines and deals with social harm, as demonstrated in demands 10, 26, and 47. Ultimately, this means the end of the Department of Corrections, but No Pride in Prisons calls for its progressive defunding in the intermediate-term. Defunding the Department of Corrections would require a simultaneous decarceration or reduction in the total number of imprisoned people. Much the same as defunding the NZ Police (see demand 7), by defunding the Department of Corrections, funds may be reallocated towards practices and institutions that address the underlying structural causes of social inequality.

^[1] Arul Nadesu, Reconviction Patterns of Released Prisoners: A 60-months Follow-up Analysis, (Wellington: Department of Corrections, 2009), 6.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

Fundamentally, the very idea of private prison ownership and operation is corrupt. Private prisons operate to profit from an incarceration process that locks people away for long periods of time but fails to make communities safer.^[1] Contracting out prison operations also serves to limit the state’s responsibility to incarcerated people, and thus its accountability for their treatment. Through privatisation, the state’s responsibility to incarcerated people is replaced by responsibility for the management of contractual terms.

By centring the contractual obligations, as well as the profit motive, privately-run prisons often place less emphasis on incarcerated people’s well-being in the operation of the prison. The failures of private prison operator Serco at Auckland’s Mount Eden Corrections Facility have highlighted the dangers of this process. Following an investigation into organised fights and an incarcerated person’s death, the Department of Corrections confirmed in December 2015 that Serco’s contract to run Mount Eden Corrections Facility would not be renewed in March 2017.^[2] Auckland South Corrections Facility, also operated by Serco New Zealand, was the site of the recent high-profile rape of an incarcerated trans women as revealed by No Pride in Prisons in October 2015.^[3] However, when these kinds of incidents occur, the state can shrug its shoulders and blame the private operator. It is able to privatise the responsibility.

It is important to note that had the two prisons above been publicly operated, the events mentioned may still have occurred.^[4] Nonetheless, No Pride in Prisons calls for the abolition of all privately-owned and operated prisons. This way, accountability to the welfare of prisoners cannot be fundamentally compromised by profit motives.

^[1] JustSpeak, Unlocking Prisons: How We Can Improve New Zealand’s Prison System, (Wellington: JustSpeak, 2014).

^[2] Isaac Davison, “Serco’s Contract to Run Mt Eden Prison Not Renewed,” NZ Herald, 9 December 2015. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11558364.

^[3] No Pride in Prisons, “Trans Woman Raped in Auckland South Corrections Facility,” Scoop, 5 October 2015. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1510/S00067/trans-woman-raped-in-auckland-south-corrections-facility.htm.

^[4] Sam Sachdeva, “Fight Club Culture at Mt Eden Prisons Existed Before Serco – Arthur Taylor,” Stuff, 26 February 2016. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/77275157/Fight-club-culture-at-Mt-Eden-prisons-existed-before-Serco-Arthur-Taylor.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

As a necessary part of imprisonment, incarcerated people are deprived of their bodily autonomy, unable to move between spaces at will or to deny invasive strip searches. For incarcerated people who have been harassed or assaulted by prison staff, this inability to move freely means that they are locked up in spaces where the people victimising them have more control over their bodies than they do. This is unacceptable, and in the short term it is of the utmost importance that prison staff who have assaulted prisoners are removed from prison facilities.

According to the Prison Operations Manual, the initial response of a staff member to an incarcerated person’s complaint is to “immediately attempt to resolve the issue informally before the prisoner lodges a formal complaint.”^[1] In other words, it is the staff member’s responsibility to make the complaint go away so that no formal complaint is laid. If the incarcerated person’s complaint is not “resolved” by the original officer, that person then has to fill out a form detailing their complaint.^[2] If the person is one of the 71% of incarcerated people who cannot read and write to a level required to survive in “modern” society,^[3] the original officer is then required to assist them with a written complaint.^[4] That means that the officer would continue to maintain a degree of power over the incarcerated person and potentially influence the written form of the complaint.

From there, the incarcerated person must go through a lengthy process of interviews and attempted resolutions before they can be advised of their right to lay a complaint with an external, independent agency.^[5] According to the Inspector of Corrections’ website, “inspectors will generally not investigate any complaint which has not been through the complaint process where the complaint originated.”^[6] This means that before an external agency will even look at a complaint, an incarcerated person has to go through all the barriers Corrections puts in place to an independent investigation.

In practice, this makes it very difficult for incarcerated people to have their complaints dealt with impartially by an independent authority. Although a better complaint process will by no means undo all of the heinous everyday practices that incarcerated people experience, it may hold to account those individual staff members who engage in particularly harmful acts. This would require changes to current complaints process. These changes must include easier and safer mechanisms for prisoners to report assault to an independent authority. As it currently stands, the Department of Corrections’ policy around prisoner complaints erects as many barriers as possible to holding staff accountable for their actions. It is in the interests of ongoing prisoner safety that No Pride in Prisons demands better and more transparent processes for complaints against staff, which are actioned by an independent authority.

^[1] Department of Corrections, “PC.01.01 Initial Notification of Prisoner Complaint,” Department of Corrections, 20 June 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/policy_and_legislation/Prison-Operations-Manual/Prisoner-complaints.html.

^[2] Department of Corrections, “PC.01.02 Internal Complaint,” Department of Corrections, 20 June 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/policy_and_legislation/Prison-Operations-Manual/Prisoner-complaints.html.

^[3] Jill Bowman, “Assessing the Literacy and Numeracy of Prisoners,” Practice: The Corrections Journal 2, no. 1 (2014): 39.

^[4] Department of Corrections, “PC.01.02 Internal Complaint,” Department of Corrections, 20 June 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/policy_and_legislation/Prison-Operations-Manual/Prisoner-complaints.html.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

Most New Zealand prisons are only accessible to the public by private vehicle.^[1] New Zealand prisons are located throughout the country, sometimes in extremely remote places, such as Rangipō, where people can be incarcerated hundreds of kilometres from whānau and loved ones. It can be extremely expensive for whānau to visit from far away, in terms of both time and money. Even relatively short distances that are not accessible by bus or foot require a car and the ability to drive. For those who cannot afford a car, or to run one, visitation to some prisons is extremely difficult.

The provision of publicly funded transport to prisons is fundamental to the long term well-being of incarcerated people, their loved ones, and communities as a whole. Contact between incarcerated people and the outside world through prison visitation maintains the ties of emotional support that can be eroded so easily by the isolation of incarceration. A 2011 study by the Minnesota Department of Corrections found that any prison visitation greatly reduces a person’s likelihood of reoffending.^[2] In particular, it “showed that more frequent and recent visits were associated with a decreased risk of recidivism.”^[3] Further, a 2012 UK study reiterated previous research, which found that visits significantly improve the well-being of incarcerated people.^[4]

Existing volunteer transportation enables limited prison visitation but publicly funded transportation is necessary to provide regular and reliable access.^[5] Where cost is a barrier to visitation, regular and publicly-funded transportation services to and from prisons will help to extend the benefits of visitation to incarcerated people, their families, and their communities.

^[1] Department of Corrections, “Our Locations,” Department of Corrections, 4 June 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/about_us/getting_in_touch/our_locations.html.

^[2] Minnesota Department of Corrections, Effects of Prison Visitation on Offender Recidivism, (St Paul: Minnesota Department of Corrections, 2011).

^[3] Ibid., 27.

^[4] Rachael Dixey and James Woodall, “The Significance of ‘the Visit’ in an English Category-B Prison: Views from Prisoners, Prisoners’ Families and Prison Staff,” Community, Work & Family, 15: 37.

^[5] PARS, “Our Services,” PARS, 20 March 2016. http://www.pars.co.nz/sub-menu/our-services/.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

Government departments have been increasingly uncooperative in supplying data about their operations to the public on request, despite their obligations under the Official Information Act (OIA). The Ombudsman has repeatedly raised concerns about the movement away from transparency and accountability by a number of government departments.^[1]

In 2015, University of Canterbury lecturer Jarrod Gilbert revealed that academics are forced to sign a contract before being allowed access to police data.^[2] This gives the New Zealand Police the power to vet that research before publication, effectively threatening individuals or entire universities with blacklisting. Further, the Minister of Corrections has recently been accused of unlawfully trying to restrict access to prisons even to Members of Parliament.^[3]

Such attacks on academic freedom and transparency are unacceptable. The OIA must be tightened to prevent such violations, and public information must be freely available to the public, including academics.

^[1] NZ Herald, “Top-level Alarm Over Secrecy Trend,” NZ Herald, 28 September 2012. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10836994.

^[2] David Fisher, “Academics Could Be Blacklisted by Police,” NZ Herald, 25 November 2015. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11550677.

^[3] Newstalk ZB, “Collins Accused of Restricting MPs’ Access to Prisons,” Newstalk ZB, 3 March 2016. http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/politics/collins-accused-of-restricting-mps-access-to-prisons/.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

People in prisons should be able to easily keep in contact with people on the outside in order to access support systems, communicate their needs, and help them reintegrate once released. The Department of Corrections’ practice of isolating people from their iwi, hapū and whānau by placing them in prisons far from home^[1] makes correspondence, visitations, and calls both difficult and infrequent. Further, this is counter-productive as measured against the Department’s stated goal of reducing re-offending by 25 per cent by 2017,^[2] as regular contact with the outside can help to reduce recidivism.^[3]

In particular, No Pride in Prisons demands that the Department of Corrections provides greater availability for prisoners to make phone calls. Although prisoners are guaranteed at least one phone call per week, this call is recorded, limited to a maximum of 5 minutes,^[4]can only be to one of 10 pre-approved numbers, and is made at the prisoner’s expense.^[5] This is absolutely insufficient. The Ombudsman has also flagged the issue of people placed in prisons far from home having to pay considerably more to make national rather than local calls to their friends and whānau.^[6]

Visitation should also be an irrevocable right and Corrections should provide some form of transportation for visitors, especially those whose whānau have been moved to distant facilities (see demand 39). Given the low literacy levels in prison, it is unacceptable that visitation, calls, and correspondence all require paperwork filled out by the prisoner.

The draconian rules about what mail is allowed in and out of prisons must be changed. All books should be allowed as well as access to newspaper and magazine subscriptions, pen pal networks, personal mail, and correspondence courses. The mail room should apply no filtering that is not also applied to free people outside prisons.

^[1] Simon Collins and Jenny MacIntyre, “Written Off Because They Don’t Know How to Read or Write,” NZ Herald, 2 March 2006. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10370457.

^[2] Department of Corrections, “Our Vision, Goal & Priorities,” Department of Corrections, 4 June 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/about_us/Our_vision_goal_and_priorities.html.

^[3] Minnesota Department of Corrections, Effects of Prison Visitation on Offender Recidivism, (St Paul: Minnesota Department of Corrections, 2011).

^[4] Department of Corrections, “C.02 Prisoner Telephone,” Department of Corrections, 4 August 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/policy_and_legislation/Prison-Operations-Manual/Communication/C.html.

^[5] Department of Corrections, “Phone Calls,” Department of Corrections, 4 August 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/working_with_offenders/prison_sentences/staying_connected_with_friends_and_family/phone_calls.html.

^[6] John Belgrave and Mel Smith, Ombudsmen’s Investigation of the Department of Corrections In Relation to the Detention and Treatment of Prisoners, (Wellington: Office of the Ombudsman, 2005), 20.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

Libraries need to provide books for all incarcerated people including specifically LGBTIQ-affirming literature for respite, entertainment, and education. Prison is a place where a person’s sense of who they are and what they have been through can be invalidated.^[1] This can particularly be the case for trans women who are being held in men’s prisons and who are, by definition, having their identity invalidated by the Department of Corrections. Incarcerated people should have access to narratives and histories that validate who they are and what they have been through, and that can help them find or affirm their sense of self.

As a Department of Corrections study demonstrates, as many as 71% of incarcerated people in New Zealand prisons are unable to read at “the level at which a person is able to cope with the demands of everyday life and work in a complex, advanced society.”^[2] A well-resourced library can provide incarcerated people with the opportunity to learn where the New Zealand education system failed them. In this way, reading can also provide knowledge for rehabilitation and other skills needed for the outside. For these reasons, No Pride in Prisons demands that all prisoners have consistent, unimpeded access to a high-quality prison library which contains LGBTIQ-affirming literature.

^[1] Jason Lydon et al. Coming Out of Concrete Closets: A Report on Black & Pink’s National LGBTQ Prisoner Survey, (United States: Black & Pink, 2015), 56.

^[2] Jill Bowman, “Assessing the Literacy and Numeracy of Prisoners,” Practice: The Corrections Journal 2, no. 1 (2014): 39.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

Incarcerated people should be able to present themselves in ways that affirm their sense of their gender. The Department of Corrections must take steps to ensure the provision of gender-affirming items, such as clothing and makeup, to all prisoners. Currently there is a disparity in the availability of these items between women’s and men’s prisons.^[1] For example, people incarcerated in men’s prisons are often denied access to items such as makeup, emery boards, tweezers, and facial wash, which are otherwise available in women’s prisons.^[2] There are also differences between the prison-issued clothing available in women’s and men’s prisons, specifically in terms of the undergarments provided to incarcerated people.^[3] The undergarments issued in women’s prisons should also be available in men’s prisons, and vice versa, for those who want to wear them. The Department of Corrections must acknowledge the importance of gender-affirming practices and presentations, such as dress and personal grooming, and must act to ensure that all incarcerated people have access to the items necessary to perform them.

^[1] Jeremy Lightfoot, “C76665 S Vella,” FYI.org.nz, 29 April 2016. https://www.fyi.org.nz/request/3703/response/12759/attach/html/3/C76665%20S%20Vella.pdf.html.

^[2] Department of Corrections, “Women’s Canteen List,” Department of Corrections, 31 January 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/459766/F.05.Sch.04-Sample-canteen-list-womens-v.06-030214.pdf.

^[3] Anna Pearson, “Female Inmates Can Glam Up in Prison,” Stuff, 1 January 2014. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/9567926/Female-inmates-can-glam-up-in-prison.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz 

Following the 2013 change in policy regarding the housing of trans and intersex people in New Zealand prisons, rules around the provision of gender affirming medical care became less clear.^[1] Prior to the changes, trans people were banned from starting hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in prison, but could continue HRT at their own cost.^[2] Gender affirmation surgery was forbidden under prison regulations.^[3]

However, after the 2013 rule changes, all mention of medical care for trans prisoners was removed from the Prison Operations Manual.^[4]No Pride in Prisons then sent an Official Information Act (OIA) request to the Department of Corrections to uncover exactly what the policy is. For the first time, and in response to the OIA request, Corrections said that it treats HRT as it would any other medical treatment.^[5] With regards to gender affirmation surgery, it appears that Corrections would not prevent incarcerated people from getting that surgery.^[6]

The issue remains, however, that in New Zealand the waiting list for publicly funded affirmation surgery is currently 140 years long.^[7] That means the prospect of getting this healthcare is effectively impossible both inside and outside prison for people who cannot afford unfunded surgery. In order for this demand to be met, changes are required to the New Zealand health system outside of prison to allow for easy and high quality access to this treatment.

No Pride in Prisons also demands consistent, high quality access to HRT. We are making this demand because although it appears, on paper, that people can now start HRT while in prison, in practice it can be quite different. No Pride in Prisons is in contact with one trans woman who does not get the dosage of oestrogen that she needs and had received on the outside. Another woman who has contacted us is having difficulty getting doctors to start her treatment. HRT and affirmation surgery can be life-saving medical treatment and both incarcerated and non-incarcerated trans people deserve consistently high quality access to it.^[8]

^[1]Corrections Amendment Regulations (No 2) 2013.

^[2] Beverley Wakem and David McGee, Investigation of the Department of Corrections in Relation to the Provision, Access and Availability of Prisoner Health Services (New Zealand: Ombudsman, 2012).

^[3] Department of Corrections, M.03.05 of the former Prison Services Operations Manual (no longer available). Quoted in, Beverley Wakem and David McGee, Investigation of the Department of Corrections in Relation to the Provision, Access and Availability of Prisoner Health Services (New Zealand: Ombudsman, 2012).

^[4] Department of Corrections, “M.03.05 Transgender and Intersex Prisoner,” Department of Corrections, 4 August 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/policy_and_legislation/Prison-Operations-Manual/Movement/M.03-Specified-gender-and-age-movements/M.03-4.html.

^[5] Jeremy Lightfoot, “Response C76663,” FYI.org.nz, 29 April 2016. https://www.fyi.org.nz/request/3701/response/12756/attach/html/3/Response%20C76663.pdf.html.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

As the policy for the housing of trans people in New Zealand prisons currently stands, trans people are housed in prisons according to the sex recorded on their birth certificate.^[1] However, many trans people never get the sex on their birth certificate changed because of the cost and time required to do so.^[2] That means that most trans people in New Zealand’s prisons get placed automatically in a prison that corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth.

With the 2013 changes to the policy surrounding the housing of trans prisoners,^[3] people can now apply to be moved to a prison that matches their gender, if such a prison exists.^[4] However, this process is long, complicated, and can take months to be processed.^[5] According to the Department of Corrections, all trans prisoners in New Zealand prisons that the Department is aware of are trans women and more than half of them remain in men’s prisons.^[6] In part, this is because of the difficulty and length of time it takes to go through the application. Other trans women are not eligible to be moved because they have been convicted of a sexual offence against a person of their gender, a disqualifying factor under the regulations.^[7] Finally, some trans women, for whatever reasons, would simply prefer to stay in the prison they are in.

No Pride in Prisons’ demand is therefore in response to each of these reasons for the majority of incarcerated trans women being held in men’s prisons. We demand that trans prisoners are immediately, on induction, placed in a prison of their choosing. Incarcerated trans people must be given the freedom to decide where they are placed and be given the opportunity to change that decision if necessary. This flexibility is necessary in order to recognise that not all trans women want to be in women’s prisons or trans men in men’s prisons.

^[1] Department of Corrections, “M.03.05 Transgender and Intersex Prisoner,” Department of Corrections, 4 August 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/policy_and_legislation/Prison-Operations-Manual/Movement/M.03-Specified-gender-and-age-movements/M.03-4.html.

^[2]Human Rights Commission, To Be Who I Am: Report of the Inquiry into Discrimination Experienced by Transgender People, (Wellington: Human Rights Commission, 2007), 66.

^[3]Corrections Amendment Regulations (No 2) 2013 reg 65B.

^[4] There are no prisons in New Zealand that house people who are non-binary, and it would therefore be impossible to place a non-binary person within a prison that matches their gender identity. However, No Pride in Prisons would absolutely oppose the construction of any prison solely for non-binary or trans people.

^[5] Joel Maxwell, “Corrections Fast-tracks Approval to Shift Trans Woman Prisoner from Rimutaka,” Stuff, 27 August 2015. http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/71510201/corrections-fasttracks-approval-to-shift-trans-woman-prisoner-from-rimutaka.

^[6] Jeremy Lightfoot, “C73361 S Buchanan,” FYI.org.nz, 23 October 2015. https://fyi.org.nz/request/2867/response/10098/attach/html/3/C73361%20S%20Buchanan.pdf.html.

^[7] Department of Corrections, “M.03.05 Transgender and Intersex Prisoner,” Department of Corrections, 4 August 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/policy_and_legislation/Prison-Operations-Manual/Movement/M.03-Specified-gender-and-age-movements/M.03-4.html.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

Sexual activity between incarcerated people is an inevitability of incarceration, and the Department of Corrections must take appropriate steps towards preventing sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Though Corrections makes condoms available to all prisoners at no cost, they are available only following an appointment at the Health Centre.^[1] Many incarcerated people do not wish to disclose their sexual activity as it is “not encouraged” by Corrections.^[2] It is therefore not good enough to make condoms available only through this avenue. In order to prevent the spread of STIs between incarcerated people, condoms should be readily available at no cost in every bathroom of a facility, along with free access to dental dams and regular sexual health testing.

Access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which helps HIV negative people who are at risk of HIV exposure to prevent infection, is extremely limited and costs $1,200 a month as it is not funded by Pharmac.^[3] This is a potentially life-saving medication that could help “end the AIDS epidemic.”^[4] PrEP should be funded and readily available to all people in New Zealand. For incarcerated people, access to PrEP is a particularly pressing issue. International studies have shown that prisoners are substantially more likely to be HIV-positive than the general population, so particular attention must be placed on the prevention of HIV transmission in prisons. PrEP should therefore be available and accessible to all incarcerated people through healthcare services.

^[1] Jeremy Lightfoot, “Response C76661,” FYI.org.nz, 20 April 2016. https://fyi.org.nz/request/3700/response/12643/attach/html/3/Response%20C76661.pdf.html.

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] GayNZ, “New Zealand PrEP Trial Gets Green Light,” GayNZ, 11 June 2015. http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/2/article_16946.php.

^[4] Ben Tinker, “Can This Pill End the AIDS Epidemic?,” CNN, 1 December 2015. http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/01/health/truvada-prep-hiv-prevention-debate/.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

Since the 1990’s, the efforts of penal populist lobbying groups such as the Sensible Sentencing Trust have made it far more difficult for prisoners to get parole.^[1] This has, in part, enabled the current overcrowding crisis in New Zealand’s prisons. This overcrowding has led to prisonersfacing increasing physical violence,^[2] and has led to policies such as double-bunking, which has in turn led to trans prisoners being raped.^[3]

This is a serious issue which demands immediate remedy. No Pride in Prisons calls for the implementation of presumptive parole guidelines, which have incarcerated people released after their minimum sentence has been served, unless they are charged with a new offence while serving their sentence. The implementation of these guidelines would reduce time served by prisoners, allowing them to engage in non-carceral rehabilitation much sooner. Further, it would reduce overcrowding, which would improve existing prisoners’ welfare through reducing the social harms that overcrowding inflicts on them.

Strict parole and probation policies are at the root of the overcrowding crisis in New Zealand prisons. Recognising the incredible harm that overcrowding brings with it, No Pride in Prisons demands the implementation of presumptive parole guidelines in order to reduce New Zealand’s ballooning prison population.

^[1] Sensible Sentencing Trust, “SST Achievements,” Sensible Sentencing Trust, 22 March 2016. http://sst.org.nz/about-us/our-acheivements/.

^[2] Talia Shadwell, “‘Anarchic’ Mt Eden is New Zealand’s Roughest Prison, Figures Show,” Stuff, 24 July 2015. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/70498362/Anarchic-Mt-Eden-%20%09is-New-Zealands-roughest-prison-figures-show.

^[3] Russell Blackstock, “Jail Attack Inmate Transgender,” NZ Herald, 3 October 2015. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11523403.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

Every single person incarcerated in the New Zealand prison system has been, by law, required to be sexually assaulted by officers on multiple occasions during their incarceration. This assault is in the form of a strip search. As stated in the Corrections Act 2004, a strip search in NZ can include opening the mouth of the prisoner, lifting and “rubbing” their hair, forcing the person to spread their legs and squat naked.^[1] The officer also has full authority to “lift or raise,” or more accurately fondle, “fat, genitalia, and breasts.”^[2]

Under the Act, every incarcerated person undergoes a strip search when they enter and leave the prison.^[3] There are a wide set of other instances in which they can be searched too.^[4] Assuming that very few of these people would have given consent to have their body invaded by someone in a position of authority were they not incarcerated, this is a clear instance of sexual assault.

Given the invasiveness of the searches, it is remarkable just how ineffective they are at fulfilling their stated purpose of finding and retrieving contraband. In the fiscal year 2014/15, prison officers conducted 115,166 strip searches and only found contraband in 472 instances.^[5] That means that absolutely nothing was found in 99.59% of strip searches.

Following requests from No Pride in Prisons, the Department of Corrections was forced to clarify its policies around the strip searching of trans people. In one Official Information Act (OIA) request, the Department dodged the question as to who strip searches trans prisoners.^[6]In a follow up, it appears that the Department scrambled to determine a policy.^[7] It noted that according to section 94(1) of the Corrections Act, a “rub-down search or strip search may be carried out only by a person of the same sex as the person to be searched.”^[8]

That means that trans women, who are women and consequently are ‘sexed’ as women regardless of genitalia,^[9] are required to be searched by women officers. However, in the second OIA response, Corrections said that a “transgender prisoner placed in a men’s prison will be searched by male officers and a transgender prisoner placed in a women’s prison will be searched by female officers.”^[10]

As the majority of trans women in New Zealand’s prisons are currently locked away in men’s prisons, most incarcerated trans women are required to be searched by male guards.^[11] In practice, strip searches are even worse than they appear in policy. Incarcerated trans women whom No Pride in Prisons has talked to have told us what a strip search is like for them. They have told us about the humiliating experience of being held down as a male guard searches their bottom half, and a female guard their top half.

The stated purpose of sexually assaulting prisoners with strip searches is “preventing contraband from entering the prison,”^[12] and ensuring the safety of incarcerated people and prison staff, with the implicit assumption that this justifies the use of strip searches. Given that only a small minority of contraband discovered in any kind of search are actually weapons, the majority of items smuggled into prison pose no threat to the safety of people in prisons.^[13] Indeed, the Department of Corrections classifies “alcohol, communication devices, drugs, drug paraphernalia, tattoo equipment… tobacco and smoking equipment (e.g. lighters)”^[14] as contraband – none of these are means for harming anybody. They are means for coping with the life-crushing boredom of imprisonment.

In a harrowing blog post, Valerie Morse details how she was strip searched up to seven times per day while in a New Zealand prison.^[15] She notes how strip searches, along with other everyday practices in prisons, led her to feel an “utter sense of powerlessness.” In other words, strip searches are routinely used by officers to humiliate and demonstrate power over incarcerated people. That is their actual purpose: humiliation and dehumanisation.

Routine sexual assault to prevent prisoners from smoking or receiving tattoos does nothing to ensure the wellbeing or safety of incarcerated people. Indeed, it profoundly harms them. If conditions in prisons are so hostile that incarcerated people resort to violence, the environment must be changed on a structural level. If, as detractors have argued, it would be impossible to run a prison without resorting to institutionalised sexual assaults in the form of strip searches, No Pride in Prisons asserts that this is not an argument in favour of strip searching but in favour of the abolition of prisons.

^[1]Corrections Act 2004 s 90(2).

^[2]Corrections Act 2004 s 90(2).

^[3]Corrections Act 2004 s 98(7).

^[4]Corrections Act 2004 s 98.

^[5] Jeremy Lightfoot, “Response C76659,” FYI.org.nz, 22 April 2016. https://fyi.org.nz/request/3698/response/12675/attach/html/3/Response%20C76659.pdf.html.

^[6] Ibid.

^[7] Jeremy Lightfoot, “Response C77626,” FYI.org.nz, 1 June 2016. https://fyi.org.nz/request/3698/response/13227/attach/html/3/Response%20C77626.pdf.html.

^[8]Corrections Act 2004 s 94(1).

^[9] To be ‘sexed’ means to be socially assigned a sex, usually at birth. The claim that a trans woman’s body is always a woman’s body recognises that regardless of the makeup of her genitalia, they are the genitals of a woman, and therefore women’s genitals. As sex is often, unscientifically, used as a placeholder for ‘genitals,’ it follows that a trans woman, having women’s genitals is also a woman or ‘female’ for the purposes of her sex. The reason this distinction is important is that often trans women are denied to be members of the female sex due to their genitalia.

^[10] Jeremy Lightfoot, “Response C77626,” FYI.org.nz, 1 June 2016. https://fyi.org.nz/request/3698/response/13227/attach/html/3/Response%20C77626.pdf.html.

^[11] Jeremy Lightfoot, “C73361 S Buchanan,” FYI.org.nz, 23 October 2015. https://fyi.org.nz/request/2867/response/10098/attach/html/3/C73361%20S%20Buchanan.pdf.html.

^[12] Jeremy Lightfoot, “Response C76659,” FYI.org.nz, 22 April 2016. https://fyi.org.nz/request/3698/response/12675/attach/html/3/Response%20C76659.pdf.html.

^[13] Terrence Buffery, “Response C77960,” FYI.org.nz, 15 June 2016. https://www.fyi.org.nz/request/3996/response/13427/attach/html/3/Response%20C77960.pdf.html.

^[14] Ibid.

^[15] Valerie Morse, “Daily Torment,” No Pride in Prisons, 19 March 2016. http://noprideinprisons.org.nz/post/141287387190/daily-torment.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

New Zealand’s prisons are severely overcrowded. Throughout 2015 and 2016, the total number of incarcerated people has surpassed all previous records and is expected to exceed 10,000 for the first time by 2017.^[1] According to the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, the New Zealand prison system is operating at 106.1% of capacity.^[2] Part of the Department of Corrections’ response to the overcrowding crisis has been: to keep open old, dilapidated prisons which were scheduled to be closed;^[3] to house incarcerated people in gymnasiums;^[4] and to increase the number of cells where two or more people are kept, also known as double-bunking.^[5]

Recent increases in the use of double-bunking have occurred following some high-profile incidents of violence against incarcerated people as a result of the policy. In particular, in October 2015, a trans woman in Auckland South Corrections Facility, a men’s prison, was moved from protective segregation and into the mainstream population. Within a short time, the woman was badly assaulted and needed medical care. Instead of leaving her in a medical bay overnight or moving her back into protective segregation, prison officers then placed the woman overnight in a cell with a man. That man then raped her.^[6] This rape, as well as countless other rapes of incarcerated people, would not have occurred were it not for the policy of double-bunking.

International studies have consistently demonstrated that there is a link between overcrowding and an increasing number of incidents of this kind. Violence, rape and adverse health outcomes have been connected to overcrowding in the US prison system.^[7] Double-bunking, in particular, “could be expected to produce adverse psychological effects,”^[8] as well as increased rates of rules infractions, and in an increase in the number of inmate deaths.^[9] Since the massive expansion of double bunking in New Zealand prisons in 2009,^[10] there has been an increase in the rates of violence and inmate deaths.^[11] For these reasons, as well as a recognition of the basic human right to privacy, and the dignity that comes with having one’s own space, No Pride in Prisons demands the immediate end to the practice of double bunking.

Although No Pride in Prisons makes this demand, we absolutely reject an alternative which includes the building of more prisons. The prison achieves none of its aims, such as correction, a reduction in social harm, or justice.^[12] Building newer, flashier prisons will not undo the harm the prison does to incarcerated people, their loved ones, and to their communities. Although overcrowding exacerbates problems associated with prisons, the underlying dehumanising practices of being regularly strip-searched, being denied adequate medical care and being denied fundamental bodily autonomy remain regardless of the levels of overcrowding. That means that any solution to the catastrophe of New Zealand’s prison overcrowding crisis cannot involve anything that expands the prison system. Therefore, the end of the practice of double-bunking requires a simultaneous reduction in the total number of incarcerated people and a moratorium on all prison construction.

^[1] Jimmy Ellingham, “New Zealand Prison Population Rising,” NZ Herald, 18 May 2016. http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11640707.

^[2] Institute for Criminal Policy Research, “New Zealand | World Prison Brief,” Institute for Criminal Policy Research, 17 March 2016. http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/new-zealand.

^[3] NZME, “More Prison Cells Could be ‘Double-bunked’,” Otago Daily Times, 17 February 2016. http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/373454/more-prison-cells-could-be-double-bunked.

^[4] Doug Laing, “Prison Adds 100 New Beds,” Hawke’s Bay Today, 25 July 2016. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11680767.

^[5] Isaac Davison, “Prison Cells Could be ‘Double-bunked’ to Cope with Increase in Prisoners,” NZ Herald, 17 February 2016. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11591116.

^[6] No Pride in Prisons, “Trans Woman Raped In Auckland South Corrections Facility,” Scoop, 5 October 2015. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1510/S00067/trans-woman-raped-in-auckland-south-corrections-facility.htm.

^[7] James Oleson, “The Punitive Coma,” California Law Review 90, 3 (2002).

^[8] Terence P. Thornberry and Jack E. Call, “Constitutional Challenges to Prison Overcrowding: The Scientific Evidence of Harmful Effects,” Hastings Law Journal, 2 (1983): 320.

^[9] Ibid., 330.

^[10] NZPA, “Double-bunking May Rise to 35 Percent – Corrections CEO,” NBR, 29 June 2009. http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/double-bunking-may-rise-35-percent-corrections-ceo-104254.

^[11] Marika Hill, “Prison Assaults ‘Nearly Double’,” Stuff, 6 November 2011. http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-news/latest-edition/5915707/Prison-assaults-nearly-double.

^[12] JustSpeak, Unlocking Prisons: How We Can Improve New Zealand’s Prison System, (Wellington: JustSpeak, 2014).

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

Many people incarcerated in New Zealand are currently being held in conditions akin to solitary confinement.^[1] Although the Department of Corrections does not name it as such, solitary confinement, or the deprivation of human interaction for extended periods of time, is torture.^[2] As was reported in December 2015, teenagers at Mt Eden prison were being kept in their cells for 23 hours a day.^[3] This kind of treatment, generally justified by the Department of Corrections as being in the interests of the person’s safety,^[4] often leads to severe, long-lasting mental and physical harm to incarcerated people.^[5] Solitary confinement increases the likelihood of someone self-harming, as well as attempting suicide.^[6] Those released from extended periods of solitary confinement often suffer from acute post-traumatic stress disorder^[7] and there have been reported cases of prisoners in New Zealand committing suicide following long stretches of solitary confinement.^[8] There is absolutely no need for this dehumanising and degrading practice to continue, and the imposition of conditions akin to solitary confinement must be ended immediately.

^[1] The Howard League, “Solitary confinement,” The Howard League, September 2015. http://www.howardleague.org.nz/blog/solitary-confinement.

^[2] UN News Center, “Solitary Confinement Should be Banned in Most Cases, UN Expert Says,” UN News Center, 18 October 2011. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40097#.V6FndOt96Um.

^[3] Stuff, “Locking Teens Up for 23 Hours a Day in Mt Eden Prison ‘Unacceptable’ – Minister,” Stuff, 3 December 2015. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/74678959/prison-inspections-reveal-teens-locked-up-for-23-hours-a-day-in-mt-eden.

^[4] Jeremy Lightfoot, “Response C72257,” FYI.org.nz, 17 August 2015. https://fyi.org.nz/request/2864/response/9420/attach/html/3/Response%20C72257.pdf.htm

^[5] Jeffrey L. Metzner and Jamie Fellner, “Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness in U.S. Prisons: A Challenge for Medical Ethics,” The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 38, no 1 (2010).

^[6] Seth Ferranti, “How Solitary Confinement Can Drive Inmates to Suicidal Thoughts,” Vice, 9 June 2015. http://www.vice.com/read/how-solitary-confinement-can-drive-inmates-to-suicidal-thoughts-610.

^[7] Brandon Keim, “The Horrible Psychology of Solitary Confinement,” Wired, 7 October 2013. http://www.wired.com/2013/07/solitary-confinement-2/.

^[8] Radio New Zealand, “Prisoner Death at Mt Eden Prison,” Radio New Zealand, 13 March 2016. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/top/298812/too-many-unnatural-deaths-in-prison-labour.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

The one and only reason tikanga Māori have not retained their status as the first laws of Aotearoa has been the invasion, genocide^[1] and military occupation of Māori by first the British and then New Zealand states. The imposition of another people’s legal system has been devastating for Māori. Secured through conquest and maintained through structural violence, the judiciary is a weapon to secure the New Zealand state’s sovereignty on unceded Māori land. From the Native Land Courts, which used the individualisation of title to allow the occupational New Zealand government to buy and steal land against the wishes of wider Māori family groups,^[2] through to the present day discrimination against Māori in the criminal justice system,^[3] the administration of law has been used to destroy Māori communities and their efforts to achieve tino rangatiratanga.

Even unsubstantiated suspicions that Māori may be attempting to organise their life-worlds according to tikanga Māori are responded to with extreme military force, as was demonstrated by the 2007 Operation 8 raids. Prior to the Operation 8 raids, a number of Māori and leftist activist groups held social and teambuilding gatherings in Te Urewera. In response to these gatherings, the colonial government wildly exaggerated statements obtained through illegal wiretapping to misconstrue these exercises as precursors to an uprising. As a result, mass raids were conducted of any and all groups associated with the supposed ‘terrorists,’ with Armed Offenders Squad officers engaging in illegal mass detainment and warrantless searches.^[4]

The extreme force deployed by the New Zealand state is a response to Māori assertion of tino rangatiratanga. Crown law cannot coexist with tikanga Māori – the New Zealand state only allows tikanga to exist insofar as they are subordinated to colonial law. Anything more and armed police are called in. Even if the Urewera gatherings had been the precursors to a revolutionary movement, they would have represented nothing more than a return to tikanga Māori as a political system – a return which No Pride in Prisons demands.

Various tikanga Māori as distinct legal systems have emerged from a thousand years of Māori inhabitation of these islands, as complex regulatory mechanisms for maintaining balance between individuals, whānau, hapū and iwi, between people of all genders, between generations, between the physical and spiritual aspects of our world.^[5] By contrast, the New Zealand legal system is a mechanism for ensuring imbalance – between rich and poor, between Māori and Pākehā. The colonial legal system is in fundamental opposition to tikanga Māori. Where tikanga Māori nurture and restore not only the relationship between perpetrators and victims of social harm, but also the social context in which the harm occurred, colonial law severs those relationships to fuel the system of mass incarceration. The communities to which these people belong are not restored to balance, they are torn apart. Emerging as they do from community, tikanga Māori experience colonial law as a process of violence. To end the violence colonial law enables, it must be dissolved and tikanga Māori returned to the status of first laws.^[6]

^[1] Ani Mikaere, “Three (Million) Strikes and Still Not Out: The Crown as the Consummate Recidivist,” in He Rukuruku Whakaaro: Colonising Myths, Māori Realities (Wellington: Huia Publishers, 2011).

^[2] Richard Boast. Buying the Land, Selling the Land: Governments and Māori Land in the North Island 1865-1921. (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2008), 38.

^[3] Department of Corrections, Over-representation of Māori in the Criminal Justice System: An Exploratory Report, (Wellington: Department of Corrections, 2007).

^[4] IPCA, OPERATION EIGHT: The Report of the Independent Police Conduct Authority, (Wellington: IPCA, 2013).

^[5] Ani Mikaere, “Te Tiriti and The Treaty: Seeking to Reconcile the Irreconcilable in the Name of Truth,” in He Rukuruku Whakaaro: Colonising Myths, Māori Realities, 157.

^[6] For further analysis of the role of tikanga Māori in the abolition of the criminal injustice system, see demands 11, 48, and 49.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

An interpretation of restorative justice exists in many criminal court systems around the world, including in New Zealand (see Sentencing Act 2002, s 24A). Superficially, this model resembles the transformative justice model. Whilst understanding that restorative justice is an important alternative to the violent isolation of custodial sentences, No Pride in Prisons ultimately rejects this model in favour of transformative justice. One reason for this is that restorative justice’s embedding in the criminal court system does little to challenge the state’s monopoly over violence and responses to violence. But most importantly, in prioritising mere ‘restoration’ of the relationship between the parties involved, the restorative justice model makes two dangerous assumptions. First, it assumes that a prior state of sufficient liberty existed for all parties involved, and second, it assumes that all wrongdoing by the perpetrator is solely the result of poor individual choices. Transformative justice rejects both of these assumptions, taking into account social and economic issues behind the actions of parties and looking to transform the lives of both victim and perpetrator.

For a full discussion of community-based solutions to harm and violence, see demand 10.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

The court system was implemented in Aotearoa as a tool of British colonial control. As Khylee Quince, law lecturer at the University of Auckland, notes, “once the land was acquired, it was imperative for the new government to bring Māori under the legal control of the new colony.”^[1] Implementing the court system was instrumental to this process.

However, this was not just an historical process, as today the court system is a tool through which tangata whenua continue to be oppressed. In 2015, of the 63,746 total convictions handed down by the New Zealand Courts, 25,699 were handed down to Māori.^[2] That means that Māori receive 40.31% of all criminal convictions, despite being only 15% of the total population. In 2014, for the first time since data exists (1980), Māori surpassed Pākehā for the total number of convictions.^[3] Once convicted, Māori are also much more likely to be sentenced to imprisonment. Of the 7,232 sentences of imprisonment, Māori received 4,017 or 55.55% in 2015.^[4] As has been demonstrated throughout these demands, both a conviction and imprisonment have seriously negative impacts on the lives of those affected.^[5] As it occurs on such a racialised basis, it must also be viewed as a form of racist, colonising oppression.

The court system also plays an important role in reproducing the capitalist mode of production. The court system is responsible for the maintenance of laws that uphold the right to private property at the expense of the rights to life, food, shelter, and dignity. For example, a coal executive is able to earn millions of dollars in salaries, bonuses, dividends, and capital appreciation, while employing others to do all the work mining, transporting, and refining the coal. The executive can require increased production and productivity from the workers, putting their bodies at risk. When a worker dies, as happened in 2010 to 29 workers at the Pike River Mine, the director is rarely held to account and can continue to extract value from the bodies of workers.^[6] On the other hand, a person stealing food, or the private property of another, can receive a prison sentence.^[7] At the core, the very purpose of the court system is to ensure that a small number of people can extract increasing amounts of wealth from workers and to stop any attempt to radically redistribute wealth and reorganise social conditions.

Beyond the court’s role as a supporting block for settler colonial capitalism, the court also fundamentally fails to administer justice. The New Zealand criminal court system addresses social harm, both real and imagined, through punishment and social control. Even where a non-custodial sentence is imposed, a criminal conviction itself, a record that a person has ‘done wrong,’ can make finding employment more difficult and place restrictions on travel.^[8] Where a person is sentenced to imprisonment, all the evidence suggests that that person will not be ‘corrected’ as a result but will still have to go through the horrors of the prison.^[9] In order for meaningful justice to be carried out, a new social and economic system, and a justice system to go with it, are required.

The court system is an obstacle to the necessary revolution in economic and social conditions required to undo the injustices of our time. As a part of the decolonising anti-capitalist process, institutions that continue to enforce colonial capitalist frameworks, including the court system, need to be dismantled.

^[1] Khylee Quince, “Māori and the Criminal Justice System in New Zealand,” in Criminal Justice in New Zealand, eds. Julia Tolmie and Warren Brookbanks (New Zealand: LexisNexis, 2007), 9.

^[2] Statistics New Zealand, “Adults Convicted in Court by Sentence Type – Most Serious Offence Calendar Year,” Statistics New Zealand, 2 July 2016. http://nzdotstat.stats.govt.nz/wbos/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TABLECODE7353.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] JustSpeak, Unlocking Prisons: How We Can Improve New Zealand’s Prison System, (Wellington: JustSpeak, 2014).

^[6] Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy, “Commission’s report – Volume 1,” Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy, 30 October 2012. http://pikeriver.royalcommission.govt.nz/Volume-One—Contents#Memorial.

^[7] Citizens Advice Bureau, “Shoplifting,” Citizens Advice Bureau, 27 March 2016. http://www.cab.org.nz/vat/gl/le/Pages/Shoplifting.aspx.

^[8] YouthLaw Aotearoa, “Convictions,” YouthLaw Aotearoa, 22 January 2016. http://www.youthlaw.co.nz/information/police/convictions/.

^[9] JustSpeak, Unlocking Prisons: How We Can Improve New Zealand’s Prison System, (Wellington: JustSpeak, 2014).