Making jail a hive of activity may turn prisoners around

BY JANINE OGIER

The primary school where Jean Hunter used to teach in Herne Bay, Auckland, had a sea view and beautiful gardens. Children laughed and played and their colourful artwork covered the walls.

She swapped that workplace for the opposite end of the spectrum as a literacy and numeracy tutor at Auckland Prison at Paremoremo, where her students range from murderers to burglars and drunk drivers.

"This environment is concrete blocks and bars, stark, hard floors, hard walls, long corridors and a complete lack of colour," she says.

It's not important to Hunter to know what crimes her students have committed, but initially she was concerned about how she would adjust to the change in environment.

"Over the first year I would come out of the maximum-security or medium-security jail and breathe deeply when I was out in the world again.

"Now I can walk in and out and there is very little difference," says Hunter, after seven years there.

"That [criminal] activity was on the outside and these men still have a heart. They have a side to them that they present to me as very courteous and appreciative."

Prisoners from age 19 to 40s learn English and maths and pick up their education where they left off at school.

"One of the things that surprised me early on was that I came across very few inmates who were illiterate in terms of not being able to read and write," Hunter says.

"But their ability to use their reading and writing and maths skills was extremely weak."

She helps the men follow a course of work through the New Zealand Correspondence School.

"They don't lack ability and they have a great deal of potential. The men who are interested and motivated move up very quickly."

For Hunter, job satisfaction is twofold. She enjoys helping to motivate prisoners to begin learning again and to realise their potential.

"The sad thing is that most inmates have had rather horrific learning experiences in the past, so going back into a classroom environment involves a lot of commitment and breaking down the barriers," Hunter says.

"Once they are there the self-efficacy kicks in and they realise that they can achieve."

But just as rewarding for Hunter is helping the men value education for the sake of their children.

At Ohura Prison, west of Taumarunui, some of the prisoners are busy bees. They are learning skills to enable them to get jobs in the beekeeping industry once they are out of jail.

Budding beekeepers are few and far between, so there's work out there for those who have a bee in their bonnet.

In 1990, Phil Logue started work at Ohura Prison as a corrections officer but he's since switched jobs to be an instructor with Corrections Inmate Employment.

He had to learn beekeeping from scratch himself before passing on the knowledge to the eight prisoners who work with him caring for Ohura's beehives.

Prisoners who are serving a sentence of a year or more have the opportunity to gain a Qualifications Authority certificate in beekeeping. The prison is the only place in the country where a group is studying the course and Logue is the sole external assessor for Telford Rural Polytechnic in Balclutha.

"People don't see it as a career option," Logue says. "There are not many people wanting to go out and be stung by bees."

When Logue was deciding what industries to set up at the prison, beekeeping came to mind because of the plentiful nectar-producing flora of the area - plus the fact that there are not enough beekeepers in New Zealand. Prisoners either request to learn the beekeeping trade or are assigned to it by a sentence planner. The alternative is food and hygiene training.

They learn hive management, how to clean hives, brood comb replacement, feeding the bees, veroa mite detection and control, honey harvesting, and repairs and maintenance.

There are 940 hives on which they can hone their skills.

"The inmates develop a fascination with the bees," says Logue, "and I get a kick out of giving inmates the chance to turn their lives around."

Gaining a formal qualification, work experience and job potential all help to reduce reoffending.