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The Department of Corrections spent over $1 million moving prisoners around the country in the last financial year - including up to $300,000 a year on chartered planes.
Figures provided to National Party corrections spokesman Simon Power reveal that the Department of Corrections spent $1.127 million on transferring prisoners in the year to June 2006.
The costs ballooned from $694,000 three years ago, as the department struggled to deal with overcrowding while waiting for its four new prisons to be built.
The costs of moving inmates from prison to prison included $276,452 worth of chartered flights in 2005 and a further $159,536 in the six months until June 30, 2006.
The amount has nearly tripled since 2003, when the cost of chartered flights to transport prisoners was $96,964.
Mr Power said the department was spending nearly $100,000 a month on transfers, and the amount had snowballed in the past four years.
"I would like Minister [of Corrections] Damien O'Connor to justify spending this much money shuffling prisoners around the country in his own version of Con Air.
"I can't for the life of me see why so much money has to be spent transporting prisoners around and this is on top of the $490 million prisons construction blowout and spending $11 million on landscaping."
He said assurances of public safety were also needed, if public commercial carriers were being used to transport prisoners.
Mr O'Connor said the increase was due to over-full prisons and it was wrong to say the department was disorganised or squandering money.
"Corrections considers security is the primary consideration in any transfer and cost efficiency is the next consideration.
"The transfers will have occurred in the most secure and cost-efficient way possible, given the pressure we face."
He said the crowding problem had been acknowledged and was a result of the National Government of the 1990s neglecting to cater for the increase in prison population.
He expected the pressure on prison populations to abate after the two new prisons, in Waikato and Otago, were completed this year. They are the last two of a $1 billion construction of four new prisons - including two in Northland and the Auckland Women's Prison which opened in 2005 and 2006 respectively.
He said chartering planes was the safest and most cost-effective way to move groups of prisoners.
Only low security prisoners travelled on commercial flights which the public also used.
The transfer costs include travel by prisoners on flights, buses, trains or ferries, but does not include transfers completed with the Corrections Department's own vehicles or the meal and accommodation costs of warders.
An Air New Zealand spokeswoman would not comment in detail on the procedures for flying prisoners, saying it was a security issue. She said the airline was required by law to comply with Civil Aviation Act rules for the carriage of persons subject to judicial or administrative procedures.
The Department of Corrections prisoner transfer procedures came under scrutiny in August last year after Liam Ashley was killed by another prisoner while they were being transferred to the Auckland Central Remand Prison in a Chubb security company van.
Mental health services pushed
Increases in New Zealand's prison population will put further pressure on the already-stretched resources of the nation's secure mental health facilities, the Ministry of Health says.
Figures released yesterday show the number of secure and non-secure inpatient beds rose from 206 to 236 between 1999 and 2005.
As well as the additional beds, prison liaison services have increased, with over 22 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees established nationwide.
The ministry said capacity would be stretched if the prison population increased from about 7712 this June to about 8685 in June 2010 as projected.
The opening of the Spring Hill prison near Meremere is expected to place pressure on forensic services in the Waikato region.
Director of Mental Health David Chaplow said the ministry would continue to monitor demands on its resources and respond accordingly.
Since 1999, there has been an increased emphasis on the transfer of community-based forensic service users to general adult mental health services, where practically possible.
