Mt Eden Corrections Facility is New Zealand's largest remand prison. Photo: RNZ/Calvin Samuel
The head of an independent watchdog for Corrections says she expects Mt Eden prison to have an action plan within the next week to address key problems identified by an inspection late last year - including prisoners feeling unsafe and limited rehabilitation activities amidst staffing shortages.
The inspection report was released on Wednesday by the Office of the Inspectorate, which is part of Corrections but holds independent oversight of the corrections system.
It revealed one prisoner was reportedly sexually assaulted by a cellmate, after multiple calls raising concerns were dismissed by staff.
Mt Eden Corrections Facility is New Zealand's largest remand prison, and received an average of 600 new prisoners each month at the time of the inspection in October 2024.
The report found that, at the time, the prison's staffing was at about 85 percent of what was needed, with the largest shortages in the custodial staff team - which had 76 vacancies.
It found that many prisoners spent 22 hours a day in their cells, partly to due to the staff shortages, and many felt unsafe in shared units.
Chief inspector Janis Adair said the draft findings were sent to Corrections in April, and that the Mt Eden prison had already had several months to work on an action plan to fix the problems.
"My expectation is that the site should've got on to develop the action plan in readiness for providing it to me once the report was released.
"That action plan will be monitored by myself and by my office in terms of attending to those deficiencies we've identified," she said.
Adair said she would give Corrections one more week to complete its action plan.
Chief inspector Janis Adair. Photo: Supplied / Office of the Inspectorate
She acknowledged that many prisons across the country struggled with staff retention and recruitment post-Covid.
She said while Mt Eden Prison's staffing levels had increased to 95 percent since the inspection last year, she remained concerned that many staff there had less than two years' experience working in a New Zealand prison.
Adair said she had visited the prison, as she would routinely do prior to a release of a major report, about two weeks ago.
"I'm not aware of any significant developments which would give me confidence to say there have been improvements in rehabilitation and release planning," she said, when asked about her thoughts on the visit.
The report had highlighted that some prisoners had nowhere to go on release as case managers had not been able to arrange any accommodation for them before sentencing.
Adair said she also remained worried about prisoners spending long hours in isolation at the facility.
She said the prolonged periods of not having meaningful activities to engage in, and the lack of social contact, puts extraordinary pressure on the individuals.
"For prisoners across New Zealand, [there are] increasing challenges with health and mental health issues - if you're already unwell, mentally unwell in that kind of environment, it's going to place more pressure on you, the longer you are held in that situation," she said.
Some intercom calls for help from prisoners ignored
Among key concerns highlighted by the report was that intercoms calls made by prisoners from their cells were sometimes ignored by custodial staff, or in other cases were not dealt with promptly.
One prisoner was reportedly sexually assaulted by a cellmate, after multiple calls raising concerns were dismissed by staff.
The prisoner assaulted said he had submitted a complaint about his treatment by staff, but the inspectorate found there was no record of the complaint.
Adair said the response by staff in this incident was inadequate and "deeply concerning".
She said when they found out about this incident, she personally wrote to the general manager of the prison to set out her expectations.
"The purpose of having a cell intercom is so that prisoners can alert and call for staff attention and that those cell intercom calls must be attended to and responded to promptly and appropriately," she said.
Adair said the incident remained under investigation by her office.
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