One of New Zealand's most notorious killers, William Bell, has been caught with a prison officer's stab-resistant vest in his maximum security jail cell.

There's a need for prisoners to have access to a phone and it's one everyone should understand: they need to communicate with their families.

Corrections staff are calling for special scanning chairs in all prisons after doctors found a cellphone hidden in the rectum of an injured Paremoremo prisoner.

The atmosphere in Guantanamo Bay is one of desperation, writes Grant Bayldon. Many of the detainees have been imprisoned for more than 10 years in this abyss where the rule of law and fundamental human rights disappear.

Shaker Aamer remembers the frantic knocking on the door, the voices screaming for him to get out.

Vegetables being grown in prisons throughout the country are being given back to the community.

A pilot programme at Hawke's Bay Regional Prison is saving dogs earmarked to be put down and giving them a "second chance" at life.

The lawyer for Maori activist Tame Iti is confident his application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court against his conviction and sentence will be successful.

Corrections Minister Anne Tolley said today that low security prisoners would be electronically tracked while travelling between prisons and their workplace, as well as on the job.

The Department of Corrections says there are no plans to expand Whanganui Prison, despite the fact it will need to accommodate more remand prisoners when New Plymouth Prison closes next month.

Almost 30 prison guards have been seriously assaulted since mid-2010 with 88 per cent punched in the head or face area and one attacked with hot water.

More than 200 cellphones have been seized each year in prisons since jamming technology was put in place to stop inmates from illicitly contacting the outside world.

Up to 1400 inmates will be working 40 hours a week - without pay - by the end of this year as part of a plan to create more "working prisons" in New Zealand.

A dangerous high-security prisoner who killed a Corrections officer has pleaded guilty to assaulting two more.

A love story that began at a murder trial drew to a poignant close this week.

New Zealand's most notorious prison escaper has smashed up a new high-tech cell built at great expense to contain our most dangerous criminals.

The family of a man who died while being restrained in his prison cell are unhappy with the coroner's findings that “justifiable and necessary restraint” was used.

Authorities are negotiating with two prisoners who are refusing to come down from the roof of Manawatu Prison after spending the night under the stars.

Prison officers were justified in restraining an inmate after a struggle described as a "seething mass of humanity", a coroner's inquest has found.