Mana magazine 'banned' from Spring Hill Prison

Images of the riots at Spring Hill Prison in 2013. Photo / Supplied

A magazine featuring a story about the treatment of Maori prison inmates was stopped from reaching a Spring Hill Prison inmate three times, with staff claiming it was not allowed in - despite the sender being told it would be.

After a woman tried three times without success to deliver the issue to her brother, an inmate at the prison, publisher Mana magazine used social media to publicly question the prison's actions.

Read the story here: http://www.mana.co.nz/archive/issue-121/justice.html

The February/March issue of Mana included a feature by journalist Aaron Smale about the work being done by Corrections to support Maori within New Zealand's prisons and justice system.

Corrections supported the story during its production and it features an interview with Director Maori Neil Campbell.

But it then appeared the magazine was "banned" from Spring Hill Prison, Mana said on Facebook.

"A Mana reader was keen for her brother, an inmate, to read the story but it was disallowed as 'contraband'," the post said.

"Mana staff contacted Corrections to dispute this, and were told by the Corrections Director Maori, Neil Campbell, that it should have been allowed in.

"He queried prison officers, they agreed it should be let in, and he told us to tell the Mana reader to try again. She did. It got turned down a second time.

"Campbell spoke to the Security Manager at Spring Hill and the Prison Manager on the reader's behalf again and was assured that the next time it would be allowed in. It was turned away a third time, despite the reader's protests."

The post ends by questioning what is going on within Corrections - "Does Spring Hill not want its Maori inmates to read about the justice system? Do prison officers not listen to Corrections' Director Maori? We'd like to know."

Mana publisher James Frankham said on the woman's third attempt to deliver the magazine, she was told by a staff member it was not allowed because the story contained images of gang insignia - even though the photos were taken inside a Corrections facility.

Mana decided to post on Facebook after failing to receive further responses from Corrections about the incident, he said.

"It's important that when we report on something that it gets to the people that most need to read about it," Frankham said.

"In this case that's family of people in the justice system, people in the justice system themselves, and the wider community.

"Our concern ? was that one of those big readership blocks wasn't getting to read the story and there didn't seem to be any good reason for that."

Corrections told the Herald today it was looking into the matter, but confirmed the magazine was not banned from Spring Hill.

"Mana Magazine is not a banned item in prison," said Chris Lightbown, prison director at Spring Hill.

"In fact, Corrections worked closely with Mana Magazine on the issue in question and a number of staff were involved in this article.

"There was some confusion among staff which I believed had been cleared up. I will be putting out communications to all staff at the prison to ensure that this does not happen again."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections said it could not yet confirm what the source of the confusion among staff was, but said it was working with Spring Hill to find out what had happened and to resolve the issue.

She was unable to confirm whether the magazine had yet made it to the inmate.