Borrows Chester: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
Borrows Chester: Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
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CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I rise in support of the Corrections Amendment Bill (No 2). As the previous speaker Phil Twyford indicated this bill is supported pretty much without contest between parties or across the House. The fact is that this bill raises and deals to a number of issues that have been waiting in the wings for some time and it is good to be able to get around to dealing with them. 
During the course of the select committee process the Law and Order Committee heard evidence in respect of various parts of the bill from not only advisers but also those working within and outside the prison system. I would like to address some of those issues now. One issue was around the carriage of firearms within prison facilities. The legislation expands the ability of prison staff to be able to use firearms in response to sick or injured animals and to put them down for humane reasons. To ensure this is clear the words “sick and injured” were inserted into the bill before the word “animals”. That may seem an unduly precise point to make but it is the case that firearms are also used for pest destruction and those sorts of activities on prison farms and prison property. Those things were not accounted for in the previous legislation because of concerns obviously around firearms and prisoners and around the health and safety of those living in the vicinity. 
It is sad to note though that there needed to be some specific powers around the authority to search property. We have found over recent years that the people who come under the most pressure within the prison system are prison officers particularly from gang members who live within the prison system and who contact gangs on the outside to “get to” prison officers. Unfortunately under the previous administration—not that that is necessarily an issue—we had prison officers bringing contraband into the prisons. They did not have to undergo search procedures as they came to and from work; neither were their staff lockers searched. This bill means that searches can now be made without needing a specifically obtained search warrant of staff quarters and personal areas such as staff lockers during the course of business. It also means that the prison service has the ability to search officers as they come to work to make them go through a screen and to check them for contraband coming into prison. It is as much for the protection of the prison officers as it is for the prevention of contraband items inside prisons. 
Prisoners may be required to submit to drug or alcohol tests. Previously drug testing had been on a fairly predictable sort of a regimen. Although people were subjected to random drug-tests when we scrutinised that we found that the random drug-tests generally happened on a particular day of the week and were fairly predictable. Prisoners could look out the window and see parked outside the drug testers’ vehicles which they recognised and they knew they could acquire in one way or another a little sample that they could put in the bottle when it was their turn from some mate who they knew was clean. 
This means that the sorts of statistics the previous speaker referred to may not necessarily be that believable because of the predictability of the drug-testing regime. Although we have had an 81 percent drop in recorded drug-use inside jails the reason for that may have more to do with who is supplying the sample than with who is taking drugs. If any DNA test was done we might well find that “Prisoner A” was actually supplying 856 samples that went into bottles and that he was paid well for it. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: That’s cynical. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: No it is not cynical. It is actually a fact once we start exploring the possibilities. When someone has 24 hours a day to sit down and think of clever ways of getting around the system that sort of stuff happens and clever they are at it. I say all power to those who can stand back and admire such creativity. If only such prisoners could apply such creativity to lawful purposes. 
In respect of religious and spiritual needs much has been made in a humorous way of inmates’ ability to celebrate the sacrament of Holy Communion with real wine. I guess it is a point to make though that when people are locked up and eventually hear that cell door slam they are confronted with their own inadequacies and they tend to look within to consider their circumstances and what might have been. It is a time when those people who are involved with organisations such as Prison Fellowship New Zealand and our hard-working prison chaplains make some serious inroads into people’s views of themselves and have an impact on the likelihood of future offending by those within the prison system. One of the provisions of the bill allows for the use of alcohol in Holy Communion by those people ministering to people within the prison system and that is as it should be. 
It is true that the prison system in New Zealand has some records that are very good and some that are very bad. It is a shame for instance that we have a very high rate of incarceration of our citizens within the prison system. It is a shame that people want to take a fairly shallow view of the prison system and of how it can be used as a means of addressing reoffending. The fact is that we have a system in this country where people who have been arrested charged and convicted and who find themselves behind prison wire go for a long time without any help or ability to rehabilitate. 
Under the previous Government if someone was in jail for less than 2 years the opportunity for that person to access help in respect of drug and alcohol dependency violent offending or literacy and numeracy problems was very much restrained. I look forward to a time under this Government when having implemented what have largely been seen as fairly punitive measures in the first 100 days we take a closer view of those programmes that will assist prisoners in rehabilitation so that when they leave the prison system they can gain employment more easily and form relationships that will be helpful in their ongoing life outside the wire. Then we will see a tracking down of recidivist rates in those former inmates as they leave their time of incarceration. 
I recall quite clearly attending the Kaitoke prison and speaking to a man who had been convicted of a drug-dealing offence. This was the first time he had ever been to jail. He had received quite rightly a sentence of 8 years’ imprisonment. Having heard that cell door slam he had thought about what he had lost. He had lost not only his illicit job of drug dealing but also his legitimate job. He had lost his family and obviously access to them. He knew that he would be in jail for a period of 8 years and that he would not be able to have the relationship with his children that he wanted because of his circumstances and of what he had done. He immediately recognised what he needed to do and he wanted some help with his drug problem. He was unable to achieve it until he had done two-thirds of his sentence and was unable to even get on to a programme that would help him with his drug dependency. 
I look forward to a time under this Government when we take a far more pragmatic and realistic view of helping people with their problems as they recognise that they need help. They will be able to access those programmes much much earlier and will be able to present before the Parole Board and their families at the end of their sentences as people who are much easier to live with and much less likely to come back before the courts and to find themselves back in prison. I commend this bill to the House.