Prison staff and their families received police protection nine times last year, the Corrections Department says.
One incident which lead to protection involved a prison officer's wife being threatened at knifepoint by balaclava-clad men who leapt from bushes as she arrived home, The Dominion Post reported.
Another family
was removed from their home and put into protective custody, the newspaper said.
The revelations follow investigations into two separate corruption allegations at Christchurch Men's and Upper Hutt's Rimutaka prisons, including smuggling contraband to prisoners.
Corrections Association president Beven Hanlon said officers who did smuggle contraband were usually responding to threats.
"Most of the examples that I know of, money has not changed hands. It's been more of a matter of intimidation and fear for family safety," he told the Dominion Post.
However, few officers gave in to the threats or bribery, he said.
"We're not saying it's not happening. But I'm still confident that we're not going to get double figures here."
Threats were subtle and slow-moving, starting with comments on an officer's relationship, then such things as their lawns needing mowing, then on a child's movements.
"Then one day your eight-year-old daughter comes home and says 'Some guys with tattoos were leaning out of a car and called out my name at school today'. And all of a sudden it's on, the pressure's there," Mr Hanlon said.
Corrections chief executive Barry Matthews yesterday announced a new national squad of former police detectives had been formed to target corruption in prisons.
The squad would report directly to Mr Matthews and "can go in whenever there's an allegation or some suspicion -- go straight into an area and quickly determine if it's true or not true".
- NZPA
