By: Women’s Liberation Aotearoa

10 November 2021

To:

Minister of Corrections, Hon Kelvin Davis

CEO of Corrections, Jeremy Lightfoot

Minister for Women, Hon Jan Tinetti

Secretary of Corrections Association of NZ, Mike Woodland

Green Party Spokesperson for Corrections, Golriz Ghahraman

Maori Party Co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer

National Party Spokesperson for Corrections, Simeon Brown

Open Letter from Women’s Liberation Aotearoa about the Safety of Women Prisoners

Dear Minister of Corrections, Minister for Women, CEO of Corrections, Secretary of Corrections Association of New Zealand, Green Party Spokesperson for Corrections,  Maori Party Co-leader,  and National Party Spokesperson for Corrections,

We are pleased to hear New Zealand Department of Corrections state – after RNZ’s exposures of examples of grossly unacceptable practices in New Zealand’s prisons – that it aims to be a “world-leading centre of excellence for the management and care of women prisoners.” We trust that aim applies with equal force to all who are in prison.

New Zealand has an unacceptably high rate of incarceration, especially of Maori and Pasifika, (1) which the Labour government claims to be committed to reducing. Whilst there has been some reduction in absolute numbers, the ethnic ratio remains unaltered, and the ratio of remand to sentenced prisoners has increased. (2)

The figures are a grim reminder of what should be widely regarded as a national disgrace, and they cannot be dismissed glibly with claims of a general increase in criminality or of gang related crime.

In economic terms alone, the costs of this level of incarceration and holding people on remand are unsustainable. In terms of natural justice and simple humanity, they are indefensible.

In relation to the incarceration of women:

• • Three out of every four women in prison have had a mental health condition in the last 12 months and/or have been victims of family violence, rape or sexual assault.
  • Over one in two have suffered PTSD.
  • Almost half have experienced drug dependence and/or have lifetime alcohol dependence. (3)

Corrections does no analysis of prisoners’ socio-economic status, but it’s a fair assumption that most come from conditions of socio-economic deprivation, not privilege.

By any sensible and humane measure, these are extraordinarily vulnerable women.

It is also fair to argue that there are many for whom prison is both unnecessary and immensely harmful. The adverse impacts on wider whanau of the imprisonment of women are well documented.

In that context, the sort of “prisoner management” systems that have been deployed by New Zealand Corrections in women’s prisons, such as the shackling of pregnant women, use of pepper spray, long term isolation, etc, are rightly condemned as forms of psychological and physical torture, and are as out of place in New Zealand in the 21^st century as it is possible to imagine.

They also make an absolute mockery of the rehabilitative claims for incarceration, and reveal it as essentially, and often starkly, punitive and brutalising.

In light of all the above, the government’s failure to repeal legislation that has played a key part in the massive increase in New Zealand’s prison population and the development of a punitive, US-style penal culture makes it hard to see its use of its absolute majority to push through sex self-identification against a considerable weight of public opinion, as anything other than cynical or short sighted.

You do not have to have any specialist knowledge to be aware that alongside the probable existence of male-born transgender prisoners who pose a threat to women (4) (5),  there will be male prisoners who will use sex self-ID as a loophole to:

• • Do an easier time (the extant harsh and often brutalising conditions in the male estate make this more likely);
  • Gain sexual access to women; and/or
  • Mess with the authorities and relieve the tedium of incarceration.

Prisons are an area in which the inevitable failures of this well-meaning but essentially wrong-headed legislation will attract the most attention. People from both sides of this most polarised and polarising issue will be watching to see whether and in what ways women’s or trans prisoners’ rights are being breached.

Our concern is solely with female prisoners and female corrections officers. We expect you to take every possible step to prioritise their safety and well-being both as a matter of course, and especially once sex self-ID provisions are passed into law.

We call on you to give prisoners and their families, groups concerned with prisoner welfare and with women’s and indigenous rights, your own employees or members, and the general public, categorical assurances that the standards of management will be improved, and the introduction of sex self-ID will not result in the exposure of female prisoners or female employees to increased risk of physical or psychological harm.

Yours sincerely,

Women’s Liberation Aotearoa.

Notes:

1. 1. NZ’s male prisoner population increased 170% between 2001 and its peak in 2018, and its female prisoner population increased by a massive 260%. The prison population is grossly skewed – 62+% of female prisoners, and 52% of male prisoners are Māori.
   2. Although overall numbers are dropping, the absolute number on remand and the ratio to sentenced prisoners, is increasing. Between 2001 and 2018, remand prisoners increased from 823 to 3161 – a trend which continues to increase – as 2020 figures show 3409 prisoners on remand. That is, from 1 in every 7 prisoners, to 1 in 2.75 currently. The percentage of female remand prisoners has increased from 5% of the total in 2001 to 7.5% 2020.
   3. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/454899/oxford-criminologist-outraged-by-nz-women-s-prisons
   4. There is evidence of born male transgender people retaining male patterns of offending and it is stating the obvious that men are far more likely to be imprisoned for violent and sexual offences than women.
   5. https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/?fbclid=IwAR2IxDoEUoneBqdEjuYrgLb_n8zDncCZHl5NUBfpJr9XwBFj5muFLUFWndQ

Image Credit: Klaus with K.

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