Dean Jacqui: Financial Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Financial Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 04 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16293. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I want to tell the Committee about what is probably a very topical aspect of corrections which the Law and Order Committee saw for itself last Friday on a trip to Auckland. It was a combined visit having a look at policing and corrections in Auckland. If I am to focus down on corrections it is a good story to tell because we did two visits to corrections facilities. The first one was to the women’s prison at Wiri. What was most notable for the committee was that this was avisit to a working prison so the focus on rehabilitation is extremely strong in the women’s prison at Wiri. Most of the women—I think it was in the high 90s—are doing something like 40 hours’ work per week and that is to prepare them for their release. We know they are going to be released so the 40 hours of work is to prepare them for that.The committee made up of cross-party membership—the Greens New Zealand First Labour and National—had a good tour around Wiri and we went into two or three different real work situations. The first one was into the kitchens where we saw the women preparing meals as if they were in a real commercial kitchen. That was because if you are not going to teach them what a real commercial kitchen is like if you are going to wrap them in prison cotton wool then you are not going to show them what the real work environment is like on the outside. The gentleman who was the supervisor has worked extensively in the private sector in hospitality and he was very proud of what his inmates were achieving. So we looked in the kitchen and not only were they preparing every meal for the inmates but they were also doing all the meals and manning the canteen for the workforce for the men’s prison construction at Wiri Prison.I was pretty impressed actually when I walked into that commercial kitchen and saw not only the women measuring out however many grams the prisoner allowance was for the women in the women’s prison but also making things like pizza andpanini to be sold in the canteen for the workforce that was building the men’s prison. So they were learning things like obviously how to prepare food how to budget provisioning and all those skills surrounding working in a commercial kitchen. They were operating the kitchen within the confines of being within a prison but pretty much in line with what they would find in the outside world. It seemed to me that the women prisoners in that environment were not only enjoying themselves but clearly they were learning new skills. There were a couple of women there making muffins to go on sale the next day. There were as I say pizzas andpanini and hot chips and all those things that get sold in a shop catering for workers.We then went into the distribution centre and again there are a lot of skills involved in distribution centres. Think aboutEziBuy and the huge distribution centre there or think about any supermarket chain and the distribution network needed there. What blew me away about that portion of the visit was that the women were getting qualifications in running forklifts. I said: “Oh crikey how many men have forklift skills and qualifications?”. Well it is mostly men. I said: “OK how many women?”. Hardly any. Well hello there will be a number of women leaving the prison system who are qualified to run forklifts.I met in particular two women and I do not recall their names. One woman said: “Look I know I’ve made mistakes.” She was convicted for fraud. She said: “I got out on parole. I went back to where I came from. I was struggling I didn’t have enough money and my kids needed stuff. I was back in my old environment and I went back to what I knew which was fraud.” She got caught she is back in prison and she is saying: “Look these skills I’m learning now I want to use them so that when I do go back out on parole”—and she will go back out on parole—