The Green Party is calling on the Government to rule out using Serco for their next public private-partnership (PPP) prison given its atrocious track record in New Zealand. The Government has just announced that the building of a 1,500 bed prison at Waikeria will be a PPP. This comes after their announcement last month of spending an additional $1 billion to house the growing prison population. “The most well-known prison PPP in New Zealand is with Serco, which has been...

Reports that Corrections management felt unable to censure Serco over fight clubs at Mt Eden Prison cast serious doubts over whether the Government can properly monitor privately run prisons, the Green Party said today. Reports this morning suggest that Corrections sat on a report into fight clubs at Mt Eden prison for a whole year, as the National Commissioner Jeremy Lightfoot did not think that Serco would make any necessary changes. Corrections was also warned in 2014 that fight clubs...

An increase in the number of unnatural deaths and self-harm incidents in prisons are further evidence of failings in our health and justice systems, and show the urgent need for a mental health enquiry, the Green Party said today. Corrections data for 2015/16 shows there were 11 unnatural deaths in custody, as many as the two previous years combined, and 26 self-harm threat-to-life incidents, six times as many as in 2014/15. Suicide is the most common form of unnatural deaths...

It’s absurd that the Justice Minister is pretending that packing more people into overcrowded prisons is a strategic solution, when she should be trying to address the reasons why increasing numbers of Kiwis are being incarcerated, the Green Party said today. Minister Collins has this morning issued a press release announcing increased “double bunking” and growing the size of our prisons to meet the out of control demand that her Government has helped created. “Hearing Minister Collins’ comments about squeezing...

The Chief Inspector of Corrections’ damning report into fight clubs at the Serco-run Mt Eden Correctional Facility definitively shows why the Government should give up on its private-prisons experiment, the Green Party said today.  

The Government’s Department of Corrections is performing abysmally and needs to be overhauled so that it stops costing tax-payers, prisoners and the wider community, the Green Party said today. “Finding out that hundreds, possibly thousands, of people have been held in prison for longer than they should have been is the latest in a long list of failures for this disastrous department,” said Green Party Corrections spokesperson David Clendon.   “Minister Judith Collins needs to front up and explain how...

Understaffing and underfunding of regional Police stations are putting the public and frontline staff at risk, the Green Party said today.

The Government should heed calls from child rights advocates and raise the age of youth justice to include 17 year olds, the Green Party said today. 34 community, academic and justice organisations today released a joint letter urging the Government to include 17 year olds in the youth justice system, days before New Zealand will appear before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva. “The evidence is clear: allowing 17 year olds to be tried...

It is heartening that the Government is finally starting to address the failure of our justice system to provide protection for victims of family violence or support abusers to change,  the Green Party said today. “Family violence is currently embedded in New Zealand culture and we all need to be brave to face the level of changes needed to address it,” Green Party women’s spokesperson Jan Logie said. “Too many families have been further traumatised and indebted trying to get...

The Government is toying with Kiwis’ right to a fair trial by underfunding legal aid services and shuttering offices across the county, the Green Party said today. The Ministry of Justice confirmed today that all but two of the country’s regional legal aid offices will be closed, following recent revelations that funding for legal aid has not kept up with demand. “Ensuring that everyone who needs it has high quality, compassionate legal aid should be a priority for any government,...