It must be tough being a prison officer at the best of times, but clearly there are simply not enough guards keeping an eye on the prisoners at Mt Eden.
The whole debacle is not a very good look for the government in its attempt to privatise prisons.
Some people may say that it serves prisoners right if prisons are in a shambolic state - they should not have committed the crimes that put them there in the first place. That is probably not a helpful attitude to have.
Prisons are a necessary evil, but they still should be humane and maintain a strict level of discipline.
Unfortunately there is a fundamental problem with privatising an institution like a prison. Government departments exist to provide services for the country, while private companies exist to make money.
A company that does not make money goes out of business very soon.
The way to make money is to keep the costs down and if you cut the cost of running a prison too much, you get chaos.
That is what has happened at Mt Eden and it could happen elsewhere as well.
The government needs to take the facility over permanently and admit that privatisation was an expensive mistake.
