Editorial: Shambles in prisons from bad to worse

No bouquets will flow the Government's way for legislation that allows compensation awarded to prisoners to be handed over to their victims. Rightly so, for myopia and mishandling have been constant companions of the Prisoners and Victims Claims Bill. Conceived in haste to remove an embarrassing legal ruling from the headlines, the legislation has, true to form, now wound its way through Parliament under urgency. The best, indeed, that can be said is that a late change means its lifespan will be mercifully short. The Greens, in return for their 11th-hour support, dictated that the guidelines for judges on the payment of compensation would expire in mid-2007. Between now and then, a better course must be charted.

The Government's approach has been flawed from the start. It sensed, and shared, the public outrage when five Paremoremo inmates were awarded $130,000 in damages for mistreatment in solitary confinement. Keen to be seen to be doing something, it paid no heed to the law that gives victims six years after a crime to sue and 12 years after judgment to recover any money awarded. Instead, it seized on a formula that paid scant attention to human rights, and none to the logic that victims of unlawful behaviour, even brutal criminals, are due compensation.

The Government's reaction should have focused on what form that compensation should take, something, perhaps, that recognised the wrong done to the prisoner but provided other than a monetary handout - the likes, for example, of extra rehabilitative programmes. Not that such a response would be without complication. By extending the statute of limitation applying to inmates, it would raise obvious human rights issues. But nothing so serpentine as the consequences of giving victims the right to claim compensation money, and making it more difficult for inmates to claim compensation.

In time, the bill has gone from bad to worse. Originally, it was not to be retrospective. But, under pressure from the National Party, it became so to cover the Paremoremo five. Never mind that retrospectivity is never a feature of good legislation and, indeed, breaches an international covenant. That, and other aspects of the legislation, will provide fertile ground for legal activity - and decisions that may lead to unintended consequences.

The Greens' intervention means that situation will apply for a short time only. And thanks to another of their ideas - the establishment of an independent prison complaints authority - there is less chance of a surge of prisoner grievance cases. That is fortunate, because much seems amiss in the prison system. The Paremoremo case and Queen's Counsel Ailsa Duffy's inquiry into the rogue goon squad working in Canterbury prisons suggest as much.

The Duffy report, released just before last Christmas to spare Corrections Department blushes, indicated that prison officers routinely flouted standard policies for the treatment of inmates, and possibly worked outside the law. Just as significantly, it found that the Senior Inspector of Prisons, the watchdog for prisoners, had compromised the independence of that position by failing to conduct a proper inquiry. Departmental investigations were also inept. An independent inspectorate is long overdue.

In addition, the Duffy report by implication cast doubt on the strand of the legislation that restricts inmates' avenues of legal action and, equally, the further human rights issues inherent in restricting the payment of compensation to "exceptional circumstances".

The barrage of criticism of the Government's action from virtually every quarter points to the complexity of this issue, and to the many shortcomings of the legislation. Hasty law is rarely good law. A fairer, more consistent and more sensible approach must be adopted when the fruits of this sorry exercise expire.