KEY POINTS:
They are the country's least desirable exports: New Zealanders who commit crime overseas. And they are winding up in foreign prisons in ever-increasing numbers - around 751 at last count, compared with 599 three years ago.
Most are in Australia, where many are residents. But at least 45 others are in 13 different countries. And that is where they are destined to remain because New Zealand refuses to sign an international treaty for the transfer of prisoners.
This stand is revealed in a campaign being waged by Glenn McIsaac from behind bars in Japan's oldest jail.
In September 2004, McIsaac was caught smuggling 1.5kg of crystal methamphetamine or P - a quantity worth around $1.5 million on the streets here - into Japan. He claimed he was the mule in a trafficking operation that involved buying the drug in Malaysia, then flying it to Japan.
The plan came unstuck at Tokyo's Narita Airport. The 30-year-old was nervous and it showed. His pallor caught the eye of a female Customs officer, who asked him if he was unwell. When she told him to open a bag, McIsaac knew he'd been caught.
Half a kilogram of P was found inside the bag's retractable handle compartment. The rest was in a second case, hidden inside a tacky tourist souvenir, two candles, and the speaker of a child's talking book.
Four months later, he pleaded guilty before a panel of three Japanese judges. His trial lasted an hour, and he was sentenced to seven and a half years behind bars.
Today he is one of more than 3000 inmates at Fuchu prison, Japan's largest and oldest jail, in west Tokyo. He is in a three-storey wing that holds most of Japan's foreign prisoners, including seven other New Zealanders.
The website of the US Embassy in Tokyo says the prison imposes "a strict, military-like discipline. There is a prescribed way to walk, talk, eat, sit and sleep. Doing things the wrong way or at the wrong time will be punished."
Punishment can range from loss of privileges to arbitrary solitary confinement, for even minor offences.
McIsaac says he is forbidden to stand up or walk around while in his cell: "We must sit on the floor and the cushion we're given is only one inch thick, so it provides no comfort."
Prisoners work in prison factories eight hours a day on weekdays. Otherwise they are locked in their cells, including all weekend.
They get three meals a day, three hours outdoor exercise a week and two to three weekly showers, depending on the time of year. "There is absolutely no fraternising with other prisoners," says McIsaac, "except the ones in your own factories and even then only at lunch and break time".
On the plus side, there's little violence from other inmates - prison authorities "exert near complete control over the prison," according to the US embassy.
In winter, when overnight temperatures can drop below zero, Fuchu's unheated cells have caused frostbite. And during the summer, a heatwave killed two inmates in their cells at two other prisons.
McIsaac remains surprisingly positive. His letters are up-beat, chatty and littered with exclamation marks; his embassy file says he is invariably "in good spirits" when consular officials visit, with "no significant concerns" about health, meals or conditions.
McIsaac says he has "never been one to let things get me down too much [and] always seen the good in things".
"I know what I did was wrong," he says, "and I will be paying for that decision for the remainder of my days." He accepts he "did the crime" so must "do the time", but it's where does that time that has the former hockey referee crying foul.
He says the hardest part is separation from his family in Masterton, especially his mother and young son. It's "almost like being punished twice".
Through the prison grapevine McIsaac has learned that he and the other New Zealanders are the only Westerners who cannot apply to serve out their sentence at home. New Zealand is now the only country in the OECD yet to sign up to international prisoner transfers.
"It is extremely difficult being so isolated from your loved ones and even more so knowing that there are other countries who care enough about their citizens to want to bring them home."
Sixty-one countries have ratified the most comprehensive agreement - the Council of Europe's Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons - eight of which have also ratified the Commonwealth's Scheme for the Transfer of Convicted Offenders.
There's also a pan-American treaty with 12 signatories, including the US, as well as two multi-lateral agreements between various Middle Eastern and African states. Japan became a signatory to the multilateral European Convention in 2003.
Many countries also have bilateral agreements. Australia, for example, has had one with Thailand since 2002; Hong Kong since 2005; and Cambodia since October last year. Lately it's been hammering one out with Indonesia, which would see Bali drug smuggler Schapelle Corby back in Australia well before her release date of July 2024.
Such agreements provide for the transfer of convicted prisoners, with their consent, to a prison in their home country for the remainder of their sentence. Inmates on death row are excluded and anyone convicted of offences not a crime in their homelands.
Governments can - and do - refuse to accept prisoners with no family or community ties, or those deemed to be security risks. There is considerable red tape, and transfer applications can take 18 months to process.
In the past 30 years thousands of convicted criminals have been repatriated and the list of participating countries is growing annually.
Yet despite international pressure for New Zealand to follow suit, especially from Australia, the Government remains opposed. Justice Minister Annette King says: "New Zealand citizens who commit offences overseas must expect to be dealt with according to the justice system of the country whose laws they have broken."
McIsaac says being a New Zealander in Fuchu is "a distinct disadvantage". "We are treated as second- rate inmates as they are aware we have no recourse or help available to us." He has lobbied Prime Minister Helen Clark, Foreign Minister Winston Peters, former Justice Minister Mark Burton and other politicians.
Peters replied: "While this issue has been considered on a number of occasions and my Ministry has in the past supported moves to at least consider the introduction of the necessary legislation, primarily on humanitarian grounds, [it is] not likely to occur in the near future." McIsaac's expected release date, with time off for good behaviour, is October 2011.
In Masterton, Bev McIsaac says her son's situation "is in the back of my mind the whole time". She describes him as an "easygoing guy" with "a wonderful personality" and, significantly, no previous convictions.
He once played representative grade hockey for Wairarapa, and had travelled to Europe and Australia, in his 20s, both times without incident. Up until his arrest he had been working fulltime in Napier as a merchandiser for a major food company.
She remembers the late night phone call, telling her of his arrest, as "the biggest shock of my life". Things are more bearable now, but she still worries about his health. She writes to her son regularly, sends photos and, if she can afford to, money. "You've got to be there to support them regardless," she says. "They're still blood."
Her son denies being a P user but says he was involved with users. At his trial he falsely claimed a Napier gang member forced him to do the drug run, but he has since admitted he did it willingly, after seeing people in his broader social circle returning "with an armful of cash".
He says he did it to pay for a legal battle with his ex-partner over custody of their young son. On this, Bev McIsaac backs up her son's story.
She says he saw a lawyer shortly before his arrest and been worried about the cost. It never occurred to her that her son would resort to drug smuggling. These days she looks after her grandson, who was just two when his father left the country, and will be nine when he eventually returns.
Unless, that is, there's a change in Government policy.
Prisoner transfers within New Zealand are common. This financial year around $300,000 will be spent on flights to move inmates around the country. Corrections Department policy acknowledges transfers can assist prisoner rehabilitation, reduce recidivism, and help ensure their safety.
The same arguments are put forward by proponents of international transfers who say the chances of rehabilitation are enhanced by prisoners being able to use local support services, before and after release.
Long-time prisoner advocate John Whitty says without such supports, ex-prisoners deported home are a greater risk to society. "It's safer for New Zealand if a prisoner serves the last, say, one third or one quarter of their sentence in the country where they're going to live after their release." They would also come under the Probation Service, making monitoring possible.
Concerns about re-offending are borne out by at least three cases in the last 12 months of ex-prisoners committing violent crimes soon after being deported here. It was also the case with two of those behind the home invasion of Peter and Maggie Bentley's Te Puke farm, back in 2005. Police had not been warned of their return.
Annette King says sending foreign inmates home might mean "the victim does not perceive the offender as being punished". And transfers may be viewed by the public as "a soft option".
What the minister doesn't mention is the financial argument against transfers. With around 700 New Zealand prisoners in Australia but just 40 Australians behind bars here, it's obvious which country's budget would suffer most from a transtasman treaty.
But Whitty doubts we would ever see a rush of New Zealand convicts crossing the Ditch: "Most of those [prisoners] over there are already settled in Australia," he says. "No way do they want to come back to New Zealand. It's not as if they're in some dungeon in Thailand."
Greens foreign affairs spokesman Keith Locke says it is "embarrassing" to be the only OECD country still opposed to international prisoner transfers.
But King says transfers are not on the agenda and with her National counterpart Simon Power endorsing that stance, it seems there's little relief in sight for the likes of Glenn McIsaac.
NEW ZEALANDERS IN FOREIGN JAILS
* Japan8
* Thailand 3
* China 4
* Cambodia 2
* Korea 1
* USA 16
* UK 5
* Egypt 1
* United Arab
* Emirates 1
* Colombia 1
* Panama 1
* Argentina 1
* South Africa 1
* Australia 706
