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Prison vans may have to be modified to keep inmates apart following the latest attack on a prisoner, Prime Minister Helen Clark said today.
The Government would also have to consider restraining inmates during transport.
When asked about the latest beating of a prisoner in a van, Miss Clark said minister Damien O'Connor had made suggestions about the way forward and something had to be done.
"I suppose you either invest huge sums of money and change the prison vans so everyone is separately contained, or you do something like the minister has suggested and restrain them," she told Newstalk ZB.
"Those are options we are going to have to look at."
A prisoner who had asked to be segregated from others was badly beaten last week by four others when they were in a van.
They had all asked for segregated status, which meant they were segregated from other prisoners but not from each other.
Last August Liam Ashley, 17, died when he was beaten and strangled by another prisoner.
"That's two within a relatively short period of time involving the same firm," Miss Clark said.
She added: "Of course you have to hear their side of the issue, whether they followed due procedure, and we haven't got a sufficiently full report on that to say whether every procedure was followed or not."
Chubb has the contract to transport prisoners for the Corrections Department.
- NZPA
