New prison's focus on rehabilitation

The first public prison to be opened in New Zealand since 1985 was touted as a "facility" focused on rehabilitation at Ngawha in Northland yesterday.

Corrections Minister Paul Swain said its construction was in reply to public calls for Governments to get tougher on crime.

It is also the first of four new institutions planned or under way to accommodate the country's burgeoning prison population.

Including Ngawha, the four new prisons will have a total of 1600 beds.

Ngawha, 5km northeast of Kaikohe, expects to start receiving the first of its medium- to high-security inmates late next month. Its capacity is 350.

The $132.8 million prison, known officially as the Northland Region Corrections Facility, will hold a large percentage of Northland offenders.

Allowing inmates from the region, many of whom will be Maori, to serve their sentences closer to family or whanau support is an important factor in their rehabilitation, the Corrections Department believes.

"I've laid a strong challenge down to the department that rehabilitation programmes need to be better," Mr Swain said yesterday.

He predicted that once Maori focus units were operating and tikanga Maori programmes were in place among inmates, better rehabilitation results could start to be seen in about 12 months.

He told a large number of officials and invited guests at the prison's multi-purpose Puawananga venue that he was opening a facility, "not a prison".

"We've listened to calls to get tough on crime ... but the answer is not to keep locking people up.

"Every year, one in every four released from prison comes back.

"This is ridiculous. If we could reduce that number to just one in five, that would be a reduction of 350 inmates.

"We have to stop them coming to places like this in the first place."

Mr Swain said prevention programmes, early childhood programmes and getting people back into work were helping.

Tangata whenua of the area, Ngati Rangi, through the hapu's development society, have helped Corrections work "behind the wire" with programmes to help prepare inmates for life after their release.

Mr Swain said this was designed to ensure no one was released without a programme prepared for them. "At present, they go out and we say 'See you later' and in three weeks we do."

There had to be a better way and the department now had a chance at Ngawha to address that, he said.

The prison, built on a 190ha rural site with the Ngawha stream flowing through its centre on what used to be a family farm, has a secure area of 22ha, containing cell blocks, administration buildings, a gate house, kitchens and a large gymnasium.

It will employ a total of 230 staff, with 180 on site. Of the total, site manager Mike Hughes says, 65 per cent will be local people.

Testing of the prison's security systems, dozens of cameras mounted on poles, and security procedures is now under way, and the first inmates are expected to arrive when these tests have been satisfactorily completed.