New jail ready to receive first prisoners

The first inmates to be housed at Northland's prison are due to arrive next month.

Construction of the controversial $132 million Northland Regional Corrections Facility - or Ngawha Prison - has taken two years to complete and final clean-up work is all that remains to be done.

Work on the prison got off to a troubled start when protesters objecting on Maori cultural grounds occupied the site for more than a year.

Regional prisons project manager John Hamilton said the construction phase had gone well.

"It was a big stretch to get skilled resources, but we've got through it."

The first group of about 30 inmates is scheduled to arrive on March 24. About 190 staff will work at the prison.

The department estimates that wages paid to staff could generate up to $8.1 million a year for the Northland economy once the prison is up and running.

Ngawha Prison site manager Mike Hughes said the number of staff and inmates would be progressively built up. "We will build the inmate population up to 350 over six to eight months."

The prisoners would all be Northlanders and the offences for which they had been convicted would range from driving with excess breath alcohol to the "top end of offending". But it would not house maximum security prisoners.

The regional prisons would operate under a new philosophy aimed at reducing reoffending, he said.

The prison had been designed with plenty of space to avoid the cramped conditions seen at other prisons and inmates would also work through programmes that would prepare them for their release, he said.

Work and Income said construction workers laid off as the prison neared completion were finding work elsewhere. The number of workers had peaked at 500 but was now down to about 350.

But the lay-offs had not created a rise in the number of people applying for the unemployment benefit in the area. More than 240 formerly unemployed people gained jobs on the site.

- NZPA