Genter Julie Anne: Corrections Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Genter Julie Anne: Corrections Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 12 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7745. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tena koutou e te Whare. I rise to speak on the second reading of the Corrections Amendment Bill. The Green Party opposed this bill at its first reading based on our objections to provisions within it that in its view diminish basic human rights of prisoners potentially make our prisons less safe and less likely to achieve the essential goal of rehabilitation and making New Zealand safer and as the Hon Phil Goff just said further entrench the privatisation of prisons which are really a core fundamental role of the State. I did not have the privilege of following this bill through the Law and Order Committee; that was done by my eminently capable colleague David Clendon. As I understand it the bill that has come back from the select committee does have some minor improvements. It is not quite as bad as the one that did go to the select committee and that is largely due to the excellent submissions from the Law Society from the Human Rights Commission from the Howard League and from Rethinking Crime and Punishment. It was really down I think to the excellent work of the Green and Labour members of the select committee to ensure that common sense was actually implemented in the bill. 
But we cannot support the bill as it is even though it has been improved. There are three basic reasons for that. The first is human rights. It does continue the Government’s erosion of the human rights of prisoners. The Human Rights Commission gave the select committee an excellent submission which pointed out that the cumulative impact of some of these changes is to fundamentally erode human rights. I would like to read from the submission because I think it really is excellent: “The Commission considers that respect for human dignity as well as being a fundamental and universal human rights obligation is linked to reintegration and rehabilitation.” A good deal of research that was undertaken for the commission into human rights in New Zealand prisons found that human rights values have a key role in the rehabilitation of prisoners. There is a report that is called  
Human Rights and Prisons 
 and it notes that the international literature also shows that the attention to human rights in prisons helps reduce conflict it strengthens prisoners’ chances of rehabilitation and ultimately leads to safer societies. So not only are human rights something that we need to guarantee to all members of society—even those who have been imprisoned—it is actually the best way to get the outcome that we all want which is a safer society. 
I was really surprised to hear the member Jacqui Dean in her speech earlier this evening argue that this increased strip-searching which is going to really dig right into the most private places of a person is somehow going to help prisoners who have mental health difficulties and who might be at risk of self-harm because it would be obvious to me—and I think to anyone—and is also confirmed by overseas research that the psychological impacts of strip-searching on prisoners have a significantly negative impact particularly on the female prison population. There has been a good deal of research from around the world that questions the effectiveness of strip-searching both as a contraband control and as a security strategy. International research has also shown that the number of female prisoners who have suffered violent and in particular sexual abuse is very high. So there is considerable risk of the abuse of strip-searches. There is really no evidence to support the idea that it is going to be effective at minimising the likelihood of prisoners inflicting any sort of self-harm. If anything the psychological impacts are going to be negative and make prisoners more likely to suffer from negative psychological consequences. So it really undermines the whole purported goal of safety in prisons. Also it limits the ability of prisons to be effective in rehabilitating prisoners which really is the purpose—supposedly the stated purpose—of the bill. So again we see this conflict which is quite common in the legislation coming forward from this Government in that it has certain stated goals like increasing the safety of New Zealanders or increasing the economic productivity of New Zealand but in fact the tools that it is using to achieve these goals will actually do the direct opposite of what they are intended to do. 
A second concern is the ability of prisoners to get adequate exercise. It should also be obvious that fundamental to the good psychological well-being of prisoners is regular exercise—that is true for all humans. Although there was a minor improvement to the bill by the select committee—in that instead of getting rid of any requirement for exercise it now limits it to 2 days without exercise—we are talking about people being held in very close quarters potentially in very small rooms or in the back of a prison van for up to 48 hours without having the opportunity to exercise simply to achieve a goal of cost cutting. That really is not a good enough reason to stop looking after the health of prisoners and their fundamental right to get out move around and get some fresh air which is going to be better for them and better for all of us in the long run. 
On the topic of health the fact is—and I am going to read from this excellent submission from Rethinking Crime and Punishment—“the state of prisoner health in New Zealand is very poor particularly in … oral health mental health alcohol and other drug related ailments chronic disease communicable disease and disabilities and is much worse than that of the general population of New Zealand. There is … evidence that the prison environment has a negative effect on the health of prisoners.” There have been a number of reports notably one from the Ombudsmen which I believe another member mentioned earlier which have called for the primary health care to be provided by the Ministry of Health as opposed to the Department of Corrections. The report of the Office of the Ombudsmen states: “we strongly urge that the Department’s Health Service should be aligned with the wider health system. Health Services for prisoners should be funded and delivered by an agency whose primary focus is ‘health’ and therapeutic support not custodial services.” which is what fundamentally the Department of Corrections is responsible for. Similarly the National Health Committee has stated that there are a number of unresolved concerns for prisoner health because there is a fundamental conflict between the custodial role of the Department of Corrections and the role that health services must play in providing a high-quality service. 
It is unfortunate that we do not see the recommendations of these reports being implemented in this legislation. What is worse there is actually a provision—I believe it is in clause 8 new section 20—that is going to move the responsibility for prisoner health care from the medical officer to the health centre manager and it is changing the principal legislation so that there is no longer a requirement for a minimum number of medical officers. The language has been changed to just “a sufficient number” but ultimately we are extremely concerned that this is actually just a cost-cutting approach to prisoner health. History indicates that the short-term cost cuts in health care in prisons or anywhere else inevitably lead to longer-term social and economic costs in the future. So the reductionist approach of this Government to justice to health and to many other areas is actually going to cost us more in the long term and fundamentally will not achieve a safer New Zealand or the principles of justice. 
Finally I was quite amused to hear the member Jacqui Dean say that the Labour Party was ideologically opposed to private sector involvement in the Department of Corrections because I would take it to be a fundamental principle of democracy that the State has a monopoly on the ability to use coercive force. It should not be the private sector because simply a profit motive is not going to deliver justice. If anything if is going to deliver extremely perverse outcomes as we have seen in the United States where a private detention centre for juveniles was paying off judges to send young people to a juvenile detention centre. That is exactly the sort of outcome that you get when you have the private profit motive conflated with what is fundamentally a core public role which is serving justice and enforcing the rule of the law of the land. We are extremely concerned. We will not be supporting this bill for those reasons because it erodes human rights it is not going to do much for the health of prisoners and it is going to entrench private prisons which are going to be bad for New Zealand. Thank you.