A group of prisoner advocacy and justice reform organisations have put their names to a letter calling for urgent measures to get as many out from behind bars as the peak of Omicron approaches
Most New Zealanders have a say in what they are doing to keep themselves and their families safe from Covid-19.
It might be staying in this weekend and giving the restaurants and bars a miss, stocking up on had sanitiser, getting your hands on a RAT test, or perhaps it’s nothing at all - whatever the case may be, peace of mind is hopefully within reach for most of the population.
But for the 8655 New Zealanders in prison, these sorts of decisions are out of their control. Any given prisoner's likelihood of catching the disease is largely up to the safety measures put in place by the prison.
And with numbers of the Omicron outbreak expected to peak soon, the moment of greatest vulnerability for the prison population may be soon at hand.
The Department of Corrections has looked after 438 cases of Covid-19 within New Zealand’s prisons since March of 2020 when the pandemic began. As of March 4, 224 of these are active right now.
Prisons have been a hotbed of Covid in other countries, due to the difficulties of social distancing when people are locked up together and a widespread lack of good ventilation. During the first year of the pandemic, prison populations in the United States had five to six times the infection rates of the rest of the population, and prisoners were two to three more times likely to die from the disease.
In New Zealand, the prison population is a group that tends to carry more than their fair share of health vulnerabilities. The difficulties of providing health services to the inmate population have raised questions from prison reform groups about just how safe New Zealand’s prisoners are.
The prisoner advocacy and justice reform organisations JustSpeak, Amnesty International, and People Against Prisons Aotearoa have come together to put their name on an open letter to the justice sector, calling for urgent and drastic change to how New Zealand runs its prisons in order to reduce the wreckage of potential widespread outbreaks behind bars.
JustSpeak chair Jordan Anderson said the urgency of the problem meant changes needed to be brought about swiftly.
"Right now, the health services within our prisons are inadequate for a normal everyday situation, let alone a pandemic,” she said. “The peak is going to be life or death for a lot of people.”
Prisoners are specifically vulnerable for two main reasons. Firstly, the statistical correlation between the prison population and people with health problems. Then, there’s the prisons themselves, which weren’t built with the ventilation recommended during a pandemic in mind, and by their very nature restrict free access to healthcare.
“People that are in our prisons are often the most vulnerable and marginalised in our communities anyway,” said Anderson.
She’s heard story after story of people in prison struggling to get a hold of the right medical treatment.
“We've talked to people who have broken teeth and need major dental work who have had to wait years to see a dentist,” she said. “Then you hear the horror stories of people giving birth in prison. The healthcare for pregnant people being really difficult and traumatising for those people.”
On top of this, conditions put in place to protect prisoners such as lockdowns have their own deleterious effects such as preventing visitors and exacerbating social isolation.
Anderson acknowledged the Department of Corrections is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to this. That’s why the suite of changes the open letter recommended largely call for the reduction of the prison population in a range of ways.
These include asking justice sector leaders to prioritise the release of people back into their communities, either by making bail available or expediting parole. They also want judges to try and defer prison sentences, and reach for non-custodial alternatives to locking people up.
Department of Corrections deputy national commissioner said the organisation had clear procedures in place for managing Covid-19 in prison, and pointed out their track record of just 100 cases before mid-February of this year.
“We are committed to containing the spread of Covid-19 within prisons to protect the vulnerable people in our care, and in turn avoid significant numbers of hospitalisations which would create pressure on the national health system.”
Marsh said thanks to the 24/7 and security-paramount nature of operating prisons, Corrections had extensive contingency plans to make up for staffing shortages. These were in place before the pandemic in case of health emergencies or natural disasters but now it looks like they are likely to be rolled out for Omicron.
Corrections has already taken measures to mitigate the risk of behind-bars outbreaks. Among these are bail services promoting vaccination and helping prisoners get accommodation for their release, decreasing the chance of them being held longer in custody due to not having a suitable address for their first night out.
“We have continuously refined these plans in order to do everything we can to keep everyone safe,” Marsh said.
Anderson called these measures a step in the right direction, and said this was why the letter was directed to the justice sector in general.
“[Corrections] consider themselves the bucket at the end of this pipeline,” she said. “In order to actually reduce the numbers in prisons we need all of these areas of the justice sector to work together.”
The letter pointed out that the ongoing controversial practice of double-bunking makes social distancing a difficult feat for many prisoners.
Almost a third of the prison population share a cell. However, this is down to less than half of what it was a few years ago. As of February 28, 2148 people shared a cell, whereas in March, 2018 there were 4636 bunkmates.
