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Assaults on prison guards more than doubled in 2005 - a statistic that has prison staff calling for change.
The Department of Corrections said the figures, which showed recorded assaults jumped from 24 in 2004 to 52 in 2005, could be attributed to overcrowding, and a higher number of people convicted for violent offending.
But Corrections Association president Beven Hanlon said consequences for violent behaviour were not firm enough in New Zealand prisons and it was time for change.
The figures showed seven prison guards were victims of serious assault in 2004, and nine in 2005.
The department classifies serious assaults as those that involve sexual assault, or physical assault requiring overnight hospitalisation or ongoing medical intervention.
Non-serious assaults were those that involved bodily harm requiring medical assistance, but not requiring hospitalisation or ongoing treatment.
The department recorded 17 non-serious assaults in 2004, and 43 in 2005.
Mr Hanlon said these represented the tip of the iceberg.
"What they're calling non-serious, when people get punched in the head, or pushed over and kicked, we're saying, any time anyone comes towards us, that's serious," he said.
"We're saying that any time an officer has to use force, they've had to pre-empt an assault, and that should be considered in these figures."
Mr Hanlon said guards were continually coping with violence - he knew of two who had been stabbed with sharpened toothbrushes in the past 18 months and another who was bashed on the head with a pool ball in a sock - but they were also continually contending with inmates advancing upon them, threatening them and spitting at them.
Mr Hanlon said there were no consequences to make inmates think twice about being violent or threatening towards guards.
Australian prisons used a "hierarchy of force", an outline of which was displayed prominently in prisons.
It said if a prison officer said stop, and an inmate ignored the instruction, officers would use an escalating range of weapons from pepper spray to guns to make them comply.
"They [prisoners] know these are the levels of force that are being used," he said.
In New Zealand, prison guards carried only a radio to call for assistance - permission had to be sought before guards could handcuff an inmate.
An internal misconduct process enabled guards to put unruly inmates into solitary confinement, or confiscate privileges like television access.
He said the association was losing patience and would consider going to the Department of Labour to complain that prisons constituted unsafe workplaces.
The assaults would have high priority at the association's three-day conference to be held in December, he said.
The Corrections Department said it was not seeking to arm its prison guards, and that its "primary line of response" was to use "control and restraint techniques".
- NZPA
