People Against Prisons Aotearoa

Abolitionist Demand 29: End the practice of double-bunking and institute a moratorium on all prison construction.

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).

Abolitionist Demand 28: Eliminate conditions akin to solitary confinement.

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.

    • Abolitionist Demand 27: Institute tikanga Māori.

    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.

    Abolitionist Demand 26:  Institute community-based solutions to harm and violence.

    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.

    • Abolitionist Demand 25: Close the New Zealand court system.

    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).

    • Abolitionist Demand 24: Wipe all persons’ benefit fraud debt after incarceration.

    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

    For those who end up serving time for their supposed fraud, they often come out of prison with large debts to repay in addition to living in severe financial hardship.[1] On the other hand, the government has written off $5 billion in tax debt from tax evaders since 2008.[2] Given No Pride in Prisons’ demand to decriminalise benefit fraud, we also believe that those who have already been convicted of benefit fraud should have all remaining debts forgiven.

    [1] Ibid., 22.

    [2] Catriona MacLennan, “Catriona MacLennan: Benefit Debt Punishment Out of all Proportion to ‘Crime’,” New Zealand Herald, 20 January 2015. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11388704.

    Abolitionist Demand 23: Decriminalise benefit fraud and stop criminalising beneficiaries.

    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 New Zealand government systematically criminalises people receiving welfare benefits. This occurs both when people deliberately or accidentally draw more than the legally allowed amount of support from the welfare system, and when, due to bureaucratic ineptitude, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) accidentally overpays[1] them or sanctions[2] them for things often beyond their control. The government is harsher on beneficiaries than white-collar tax fraudsters,[3] despite the fact that benefit fraud cost just $22 million in 2010[4] compared to tax evasion’s more than $7.4 billion in 2011.[5] Further, 60 percent of people convicted of benefit fraud were imprisoned compared to only 22 percent of tax offenders between 2008 and 2011.[6] These practices disproportionately affect women, as women are more likely to be imprisoned for fraud offences than men,as well as Māori, who make up nearly half of those sentenced to imprisonment for fraud.[7] This unequal, punitive, and dehumanising approach commonly leads people from poverty into debt and, sometimes, incarceration.

    The current system is also open to abuse as a vehicle for interpersonal control. This is due to the MSD practice of encouraging informants[8] to file fraud reports against people they know.[9] It is MSD policy to act on all allegations of benefit fraud and to seek prosecution for those instances they believe are “premeditated.”[10] The fraud reporting process is designed to be used by informants with a high level of knowledge of the person whom they are reporting.[11] This can, and has, led to the use of MSD reporting as a tool for blackmail or revenge.[12]

    People dependent on the Sole Parent Benefit[13] are especially vulnerable to pressure and blackmail because they are in danger of being fined, indebted, prosecuted, or imprisoned for “relationship fraud” if they are perceived to be in a partnership,[14] no matter how financially independent they are from their supposed partner. This grants an unacceptable level of power over people to anyone willing to report, or threaten to report, them. MSD has an obligation not to facilitate the further impoverishment, distress, abuse, or incarceration of those it is tasked to help.[15] Its current approach of criminalising beneficiaries demonstrates its fundamental failure to meet this obligation.

    Child Poverty Action Group’s report into the extensive harm done to children, in particular by the MSD’s pursuit of “relationship fraud” by people on Sole Parent Benefits, recommended, a ban on imprisoning mothers with dependent children due to overdrawn benefits.[16] It is No Pride in Prisons’ position that incarceration due to welfare fraud should not be imposed on anyone, and we therefore demand that the practice of seeking criminal prosecution for overdrawn benefits be ceased and outlawed.

    [1] YouthLaw Aotearoa, “Fraud & Overpayments,” YouthLaw Aotearoa, 26 January 2016. http://www.youthlaw.co.nz/information/welfare-benefits/fraud-overpayments/.

    [2] Social Security Act 1964 s 117.

    [3] Lisa Marriott, “Courts More Lenient on White Collar Criminals,” Victoria University of Wellington, 14 April 2016. http://www.victoria.ac.nz/research/expertise/business-commerce/fraud-sentencing.

    [4] Chester Borrows, “Tackling Welfare Fraud: Proposed Approach,” Ministry of Social Development, 21 June 2012. https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/work-programmes/welfare-fraud/r-tackling-welfare-fraud-proposed-approach.pdf.

    [5] Richard Murphy, The Cost of Tax Abuse: A Briefing Paper on the Cost of Tax Evasion Worldwide, (Chesham: Tax Justice Network, 2011), 11.

    [6] Lisa Marriott, “Courts More Lenient on White Collar Criminals,” Victoria University of Wellington, 14 April 2016. http://www.victoria.ac.nz/research/expertise/business-commerce/fraud-sentencing.

    [7] Statistics New Zealand, “Annual Remand Prisoner Throughput for the Latest Fiscal Years,” Statistics New Zealand, August 2016. http://nzdotstat.stats.govt.nz/wbos/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TABLECODE7321.

    [8] K. B. Brady, “Part 3: Detecting Benefit Fraud,” Controller and Auditor General New Zealand, 9 June 2008. http://www.oag.govt.nz/2008/benefit-fraud/part3.htm.

    [9] Work and Income, “Report a Suspected Fraud,” Work and Income, 15 March 2016. http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/about-work-and-income/contact-us/report-suspected-fraud/.

    [10] Ministry of Social Development, The Statistical Report 2012 for the Year Ending June 2012, (Wellington: Ministry of Social Development, 2013), 193.

    [11] Work and Income, “Information That Helps Us When You Report a Suspected Fraud,” Work and Income, 11 April 2016. http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/about-work-and-income/contact-us/report-suspected-fraud/info-suspected-fraud-allegation.html.

    [12] Catriona MacLennan, Stop Sending Beneficiary Mums to Jail – Our Double Standard on Debt, (Speech, Child Poverty Action Group, 12 December 2014).

    [13] Social Security Act 1964 s 20D.

    [14] Work and Income, “Are You in a Relationship?” Work and Income, 25 January 2016. http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/on-a-benefit/tell-us/are-you-in-a-relationship.html.

    [15] Catriona MacLennan, Stop Sending Beneficiary Mums to Jail – Our Double Standard on Debt, (Speech, Child Poverty Action Group, 12 December 2014).

    [16] Susan St John et al., The Complexities of ‘Relationship’ in the Welfare System and the Consequences for Children, (Auckland: Child Poverty Action Group, 2014).

    • Abolitionist Demand 22: End the practice of incarcerating trans people.

    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

    International studies have consistently demonstrated that trans people, particularly trans women, experience significant levels of violence and discrimination in prison.[1] This violence occurs in many ways, from harassment by staff and other inmates, to physical and sexual violence. In particular, a 2007 report on California prisons found that trans women are thirteen times more likely than other inmates to be sexually assaulted while in prison.[2] This finding is supported by the largest ever survey of LGBTIQ prisoners in the USA, conducted by Black and Pink, which found that 79% of trans women in the study had been sexually assaulted while in prison.[3] Further, 37% of all LGBTIQ respondents to the Black and Pink survey said that they had experienced some form of sexual violence at the hands of prison staff.[4] 22% of trans women in the survey reported that they had been specifically raped by prison staff.[5]

    With these statistics in mind, the incarceration of a trans person, particularly a trans woman, is inherently a harsher sentence than the equivalent incarceration of a cisgender person. Sentencing a trans woman to a custodial sentence must be recognised as sentencing her to near-unavoidable prison violence and sexual assault. Subjecting a trans person to increased rates of sexual and physical assault is entirely unacceptable.

    For these reasons, No Pride in Prisons demands that, in the intermediate term, no trans person be sentenced to a custodial sentence.[6] This demand is not without precedent. In McGhie v Police, a trans woman was given a non-custodial sentence on the basis that her gender would make that sentence unnecessarily harsh.[7] In cases involving more serious offences, custodial sentences have often been reduced where gender identity has been considered (Tua v Police, R v Warwick).[8] In other words, there are cases where even the New Zealand Courts recognise that prisons are extremely unsafe places for trans women, and account for that in sentencing. No Pride in Prisons supports an extension of this legal principle to all custodial sentences for all cases involving trans people. Doing so would, in effect, end the incarceration of trans people.

    [1] Valerie Jenness et al., Violence in California Correctional Facilities: An Empirical Examination of Sexual Assault, (California: Center for Evidence-Based Corrections, 2007). Jason Lydon et al. Coming Out of Concrete Closets: A Report on Black & Pink’s National LGBTQ Prisoner Survey, (United States: Black & Pink, 2015.

    [2] Valerie Jenness et al., Violence in California Correctional Facilities: An Empirical Examination of Sexual Assault, (California: Center for Evidence-Based Corrections, 2007), 3.

    [3] Jason Lydon et al. Coming Out of Concrete Closets: A Report on Black & Pink’s National LGBTQ Prisoner Survey, (United States: Black & Pink, 2015), 44.

    [4] Ibid., 39.

    [5] Ibid., 44.

    [6] Although, of course, in the longer term No Pride in Prisons demands that no one at all should be ‘sentenced’ to anything, let alone a custodial sentence.

    [7]McGhie v Police HC Wellington AP 172-91, 9 October 1991.

    [8]Tua v Police HC Auckland CRI-2011-404-340, 18 November 2011. R v Warwick HC Auckland CRI-2010-057-508, 15 June 2010.

    • Abolitionist Demand 21: End the practice of incarcerating intellectually disabled people.

    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

    Intellectually disabled people are exceptionally at-risk during incarceration. Intellectually disabled people in New Zealand often receive inadequate support from the public health system[1] and from the Ministry of Social Development,[2] and this results in many being incarcerated.[3]

    Once incarcerated, access to healthcare and appropriate support – especially appropriate and safe social and living conditions – is significantly minimised.[4] This fosters an environment where incarceration serves not only to conceal inadequate support of the intellectually disabled from the public eye, but to exacerbate it. Incarceration of disabled persons as a substitute for adequate care meets none of their needs, instead effectively punishing them for being disabled.

    Intellectually disabled people are overrepresented in prison populations. A 1998 study suggests that over 80% of New Zealand prisoners have sustained a traumatic brain injury, [5] and in the 2005 Prisoner Health Survey, 63.4% of prisoners self-reported a head injury.[6] A UNSW study suggests that intellectual disability severely impacts treatment and experiences at every stage in the Criminal Injustice System.[7] The researchers found that being more susceptible to peer pressure or experiencing impaired reasoning creates a higher probability of being arrested for criminal activity, heightens risk of assault or mistreatment while incarcerated, and impairs readjustment into society after release.[8] No conviction of an intellectually disabled person under the Criminal Injustice System can be separated from their disability. As such, the incarceration of intellectually disabled persons should be ended entirely.

    [1] Human Rights Commission, “Disturbing Health Statistics on Intellectual Disabilities,” Scoop, 12 September 2013. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE1309/S00056/disturbing-health-statistics-on-intellectual-disabilities.htm.

    [2] J. R. Murphy, “Open Letter to New Zealand Ministry of Social Development,” J. R. Murphy Poet, 16 October 2014. http://www.jrmurphypoet.com/2014/10/open-letter-to-new-zealand-ministry-of-social-development/.  

    [3] Lucy Warhurst, “Neurologically Disabled Overrepresented in Prison,” Newshub, 12 May 2016. http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/neurologically-disabled-overrepresented-in-prison-2016051219#axzz4FrXBSTC0.

    [4] 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).

    [5] Tracey V. Barnfield and Janet M. Leathem, “Incidence and Outcomes of Traumatic Brain Injury and Substance Abuse in a New Zealand Prison Population.” Brain Injury 12, 6 (1998).

    [6] Kirstin Lindberg et al., Results from the Prisoner Health Survey 2005, (Wellington: Ministry of Health, 2006), 121.

    [7] Eileen Baldry et al., People with Mental and Cognitive Disabilities: Pathways into Prison, (Sydney: University of New South Wales, 2011).

    [8] Ibid., 4

    Abolitionist Demand 20: Abolish life sentences.

    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

    Undeniably, the intention of many of those working for the Departments of Corrections and Justice is to “ensure that offenders receive the help they need to turn their lives around.”[1] The very name ‘Department of Corrections’ suggests that its purpose should be towards the ‘correction’ of socially harmful behaviour. If the role of Corrections is to ‘correct,’ then how can sentencing a person to incarceration for life be justified? Such a sentence is an admission, from the outset, that the Department of Corrections, and the Criminal Injustice System broadly, has failed to ‘correct’ and plans to continue to fail for the rest of that person’s life.

    Life sentences are enforceable for the crimes of murder, manslaughter, and Class A drug dealing, although almost all instances of life sentences are handed down for murder.[2] This is despite evidence that suggests that people convicted of murder are some of the least likely to reoffend.[3] Further, the effect of life imprisonment on incarcerated people is dire. The United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice issued a report on life sentences in 1994, finding that life imprisonment “can lead to common deleterious sociological effects: isolation, desocialization, loss of personal responsibility, identity crisis and a general dependency on the penal institution.”[4] The report describes all long-term imprisonment as “a slow process of social deformation,”[5] which destroys the ability of incarcerated people to function as members of communities. Rather than ‘correction,’ life imprisonment causes “prisonization” – the adaptation of human beings to conditions of incarceration.[6] Far from rehabilitating people and reintroducing them to society ready to heal the social harm they have perpetrated, life sentences break people and condemn them indefinitely to life in prison institutions.

    There is no justice in locking someone away for a lifetime. Justice is achieved by transforming that person, and the social conditions that led them to do harm, as demonstrated in demands 10, 26, and 47. No Pride in Prisons is committed to the belief that people and society are capable of fundamental change and that justice requires a commitment to helping people, and society, to change. With this in mind, No Pride in Prisons demands the immediate repeal of all life sentences.


    [1] Department of Corrections, “Who We Are,” Department of Corrections, 4 June 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/about_us/who_we_are.html.

    [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] Marieke Liem, “Homicide Offender Recidivism: A review of the literature,” Aggression and Violent Behavior 18, no. 1 (2012).

    [4] United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, Life Imprisonment,(Vienna: United Nations, 2014), 6.

    [5] Ibid., 7.

    [6] Ibid.

    • Abolitionist Demand 19: End legal employment discrimination on the basis of criminal record.

    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 Human Rights Act 1993 does not specifically protect those with criminal records from discrimination.[1] It is therefore lawful for employers to discriminate against job applicants on the grounds of previous criminal offences, unless it somehow indirectly leads to discrimination on other grounds outlined in the Act.[2] This heavily restricts the possibility of those with criminal records from being employed and moving on from their prison time. A 2003 study showed that employers are far less likely to respond to applications from people with criminal records.[3] It has also been demonstrated that when fewer jobs are available to previously incarcerated people, rates of recidivism increase.[4] This leaves previously incarcerated people stuck in a vicious cycle of unemployment and imprisonment.

    While the Clean Slate Act 2004 effectively wipes away a person’s criminal conviction after some time,[5] this does not apply to those who have had a custodial sentence imposed on them.[6] This means that the law does not apply to formerly incarcerated people, and that a person will be marked by their prison sentence until they die.

    No Pride in Prisons therefore demands that protection from employment discrimination on the basis of criminal record be enshrined. This should be implemented by amending the Human Rights Act 1993 to include criminal records under unlawful grounds for discrimination,[7] and by the inclusion of formerly incarcerated people within the provisions of the Clean Slate Act 2004.[8] While this would not directly end stigma against incarcerated and previously incarcerated people, it would remove some of the barriers to finding stable employment that are essential to moving on from prison.

    [1]Human Rights Act 1993 s 21.

    [2] Human Rights Act 1993 s 65.

    [3] Devah Pager, “The Mark of a Criminal Record,” American Journal of Sociology 108, no 5 (2003): 956.

    [4] Crystal S. Yang, “Local Labor Markets and Criminal Recidivism,” (working paper): 30.

    [5]Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004 s 4.

    [6]Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004 s 7(1)(b).

    [7]Human Rights Act 1993 s 21.

    [8]Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004 s 7.

    • Abolitionist Demand 18: Decriminalise student loan defaults.

    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

    Section 162A of the Student Loan Scheme Act 2011 makes it a criminal offence to default on a student loan from abroad. This crime carries a penalty of up to three months imprisonment. As reported by RNZ, nearly 70% of the 110,000 people abroad with student loan debts are in default.[1] This has led to a palpable fear among defaulters that if they return to New Zealand, they will be arrested.[2]

    Before 1989, tertiary education in New Zealand was free.[3] Now, students from less-privileged backgrounds are not only shackled with lifelong debts, but are also at risk of being incarcerated because of this debt. The problem of massive student debt was created by succeeding governments and is the fault of those governments. Not only are students expected to pay for something that was fully-funded by the state thirty years ago, but they are also charged exorbitant rates of interest when they go overseas and then potentially exiled from New Zealand or jailed, just for getting an education.[4] This is a punitive policy that must be repealed immediately.

    [1] Tom Furley, “Student Loan Arrest Prompts Overseas Repayment,” Radio New Zealand, 4 April 2016. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/300616/student-loan-arrest-prompts-overseas-repayments.

    [2] Nicholas Jones, “New Zealanders Scared to Come Home Due to Student Loan Arrest Threat,” New Zealand Herald, 3 June 2016. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11649957.

    [3] Ron Crawford, History of Tertiary Education Reforms in New Zealand, (New Zealand: New Zealand Productivity Commission, 2016), 2. No Pride in Prisons is committed to the reintroduction of free, fully funded tertiary education for all students.

    [4] Inland Revenue, “Interest-free When You’re Overseas,” Inland Revenue, 11 May 2016. http://www.ird.govt.nz/studentloans/overseas/interest-free/sl-interest-free-overseas.html.

    Abolitionist Demands 17: Decriminalise HIV transmission.

    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 New Zealand, people living with HIV are legally obligated to disclose their HIV status before having unprotected vaginal or anal sex.[1] Contrary to its aims, this is a damaging, stigmatising law that does little to prevent the spread of HIV or to address the broader social issues surrounding transmission. Criminalising HIV transmission simply deepens the stigma suffered by those who are HIV-positive, and imbues the fear that one’s HIV status may be used against them in the Criminal Injustice System.[2] As such, it may discourage people from seeking out testing or counselling, and creates distrust in the relationships of HIV-positive people with their partners and healthcare providers.[3]

    Further, the criminalisation of HIV transmission does not account for or address the fact that many HIV-positive people do not know their HIV status, and particularly so during the first few months after infection.[4] This is also the time when there is highest risk of transmission.[5] In this sense, the criminalisation of HIV transmission is an ineffective if not counter-productive way to combat the spread of HIV.  In effect, all it does is criminalise HIV-positive people. Overseas, these kinds of measures have been used to target gay men, sex workers, and trans women,[6] who have among the highest HIV rates in the world while also experiencing discrimination in healthcare and other social services.[7] It is also worth noting that, according to studies conducted abroad, HIV rates are very high among incarcerated people, who are not given sufficient access to safer sex options or healthcare.[8]

    Decriminalising HIV transmission is therefore a step towards facilitating open, honest, and respectful treatment and prevention of HIV. It is also essential in undoing the stigma faced by HIV-positive people in relationships, social services, healthcare, and the Criminal Injustice System.


    [1] Body Positive New Zealand, “HIV & Disclosure,” Body Positive New Zealand, 15 April 2016. http://www.bodypositive.org.nz/Pages/HIV_and_Disclosure/.

    [2]Open Society Institute, 10 Reasons to Oppose the Criminalization of HIV Exposure or Transmission, (New York: Open Society Institute, 2008), 10.

    [3] ibid.

    [4] Anna Satcher Johnson et al., “Monitoring Selected National HIV Prevention and Care Objectives by using HIV Surveillance Data,” HIV Surveillance Supplemental Report 19, no. 3 (2014): 12.

    [5] AIDS.gov, “Stages of HIV Infection,” AIDS.gov, 27 July 2016. https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/just-diagnosed-with-hiv-aids/hiv-in-your-body/stages-of-hiv/.

    [6] Open Society Institute, 10 Reasons to Oppose the Criminalization of HIV Exposure or Transmission, (New York: Open Society Institute, 2008), 17.

    [7] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “HIV Risk Among Adult Sex Workers in the United States,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 July 2015. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/sexworkers.html.

    [8] Ibid.

    • Abolitionist Demand 16: Remove abortion from the Crimes Act.

    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

    Abortion is criminalised in New Zealand and is punishable by up to 14 years in prison,[1] unless two doctors certify that the pregnant person[2] meets the conditions for exemption under the Crimes Act 1961.[3] These exemptions are: serious danger to the life, physical health, or mental health of the pregnant person; any form of incest or sexual relations with a guardian; mental sub-normality; foetal abnormality; or, after 20 weeks gestation, only to save the life of or to prevent serious permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant person.[4]

    Doctors may conscientiously object to referring someone for abortion, although they are required to inform the person that they can try another doctor under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003.[5] Further, the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977 restricts where and how abortions may be performed.[6] These conditions make access to abortion services incredibly prohibitive, especially for people in poverty and people living in rural areas far from the nearest clinic. Abortion is a personal health matter, not a criminal matter, and should be decriminalised immediately.

    [1]Crimes Act 1961 s 182.

    [2] It is important to note that not only women can become pregnant. The wording of “pregnant person” recognises this fact.

    [3]Crimes Act 1961 s 187A.

    [4]Crimes Act 1961 s 187A.

    [5]Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 s 174.

    [6] Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977.

    • Abolitionist Demand 15: End the practice of re-incarcerating people for breaching parole, probation, or bail conditions.

    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 

    Someone’s release on parole or probation is made on a conditional basis, and the Department of Corrections outlines that there are both standard and special conditions for release. Corrections is able to recall individuals on probation or parole to prison for what it deems ‘non-compliance’ or breaching parole/probation conditions.[1] The Department of Corrections’ website lists “not associating with certain people” as a standard release condition.[2] Special conditions are outlined by the New Zealand Parole Board, with one common special condition being “taking prescription medicine.”[3]

    Those on parole face disciplinary action and can be recalled to prison if they breach these conditions.[4] It is entirely unreasonable that a condition of release may include a factor as arbitrary as ensuring that people ‘take prescription medicine.’ It means that if, for any reason, a person needs to stop taking prescribed medication without the consent of their doctor and parole officer, that person could be imprisoned for asserting their bodily autonomy and deciding what medication to take. This demonstrates that the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Parole Board see parole and probation conditions as a further opportunity to encroach on incarcerated people’s dignity and autonomy.

    Often a condition of release will be that former prisoners do not associate with friends and whānau due to alleged ‘criminal connections.’[5] This then puts people in an untenable position of having to either isolate themselves from their only available support network, or otherwise risk disciplinary action or being recalled to prison. No Pride in Prisons demands an immediate end to this practice. No one should be recalled to prison for associating with anyone regardless of ‘criminal connections.’ No one should be punished for wanting to be surrounded by friends and whānau after experiencing incarceration. No one should be wilfully alienated from their community. Given the scarcity of state resources and support available to previously incarcerated people, communities can be a person’s sole source of support.

    New Zealand prisons are currently at 106.1% capacity[6] and incarceration rates continue to increase despite levels of crime decreasing.[7] The practice of incarcerating individuals on parole, probation or bail for violations that are not new criminal charges contributes in no small part to mass incarceration. It must be ended immediately.

    [1] Department of Corrections, “Holding Offenders to Account,” Department of Corrections, 24 March 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/working_with_offenders/community_sentences/sentences_and_orders/holding_offenders_to_account.html.

    [2] Department of Corrections, “Standard and Special Conditions,” Department of Corrections, 24 March 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/working_with_offenders/community_sentences/being_on_probation/special_conditions.html.

    [3] Ibid.

    [4] Department of Corrections, “Holding Offenders to Account,” Department of Corrections, 24 March 2016. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/working_with_offenders/community_sentences/sentences_and_orders/holding_offenders_to_account.html.

    [5] Shelley Robinson, “Homeless ‘Friends’ Can’t Hang Out,” Stuff, 24 September 2014. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10535365/Homeless-friends-can-t-hang-out.

    [6] 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.

    [7] Brian Rudman. “High Incarceration Rate is the Real Prison Scandal,” NZ Herald, 29 July 2015. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11488264.